


people can surprise you (or not)

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-23
Updated: 2018-06-01
Packaged: 2019-02-19 05:42:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 38,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13117242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: He's a poor joke of a journalist, she has something to prove to her family, and they're in here for a hell of a ride.(“You’re asking me to be an asshole to some random woman just to prove a very sexist and offensive point like I’m some guy on Reddit who has no idea women are actually people?”)(“Next Wednesday. I bet you can’t find a guy tonight, in this bar, and keep him until next Wednesday. Prove me wrong and introduce him to Nana during the gala. As your boyfriend.”)OR, the reversed How to lose a guy in 10 days AU nobody asked, but everybody gets.





	1. Monday (1)

**Author's Note:**

> My love of romcom movies and the fact that Derek plays the "asshole who has a bet about dating going on" so well got the better of me, what can I say?

Dmitry looks up from his laptop, swallowing down a sigh. The meeting has been going on for what feels like hours now, with no sign of it finishing any time soon. Gleb has rejected two dozen article ideas so far, which is a record even for him. Nothing is fresh enough for BuzzClick’s editorial line. Dmitry has been working here long enough to read between the lines – nothing is clickbait-worthy, nor has the potential of going viral. Which, in Gleb’s world, means it’s useless.

Five years of studying journalism for this bullshit, Dmitry thinks bitterly. What would his father think? Still, when yet another moronic idea gets dismissed, and with a pointed elbow in the arm from Vlad, Dmitry finally raises his hand. “I’ve been working on something,” he admits. Then, with a hand wave from Gleb to go on, “About the scams happening on Instagram right now, and how companies use gullible, young women to promote their products for free.”

Gleb raises an unimpressed eyebrow and folds his hands on his chest, and Dmitry prepares for the inevitable lecture. “And why should BuzzClick’s audience care about this, exactly?”

Because your audience is a bunch of teenager fools who don’t know any better, Dmitry thinks. But he has his answer prepared, thankfully, and instead he offers his boss a placarding smile. “Social networks and the evils of capitalism? It’s a millennial dream, people will love it. Not to mention it never hurts to show how naïve and gullible young girls are, am I right?”

Gleb remains silence for a few seconds, so much so that Dmitry believes him interested, or at least intrigued enough to want to hear more about it. But then, “No. Anything else?”

“Excuse –”

“I said no, Sudayev. Moving on.”

Dmitry is left gaping at his boss, unable to believe his eyes and ears. Gleb royally ignores him as he listens, then rejects, yet another idea from someone else. Dmitry is too gobsmacked to do anything else but stare for long seconds, until Vlad puts a hand on his arm and leans closer to him. “Better luck next time, boy,” he whispers.

“This isn’t fair,” Dmitry finds himself replying like a petulant child.

He swallows his anger with a sip of burning coffee, which does nothing to quiet the fire inside him. The article is good, he knows. Good enough to move him from clickbait list articles and onto a real journalistic job at last. It’s been five years of this bullshit, and Dmitry has had enough. But Gleb refuses to give him a chance, for reasons Dmitry has never understood – some rumours of an old rivalry between their fathers, which is the most moronic excuse ever. Holding grudges can only go so far, and Dmitry has had enough.

“I have an idea,” another man says, raising a hand in the air, then pushing his glasses up his nose. Gleb turns to him. “Some kind of social experiment. About how – how, you know, nice guys finish last.”

Dmitry forces himself not to groan out loud, even more so when a smirk appears at the corner of Gleb’s mouth. “Go on.”

“I was thinking about – seeing what happens when an alpha male is an asshole to a woman, and when a, well, normal man does it. How long it would take for the woman to dump either of them.”

This seriously is the most moronic idea Dmitry has even heard in his life, and he’s heard his fair share of bullshit in this meeting room. But Gleb is actually thinking about it, the fucking idiot, and Dmitry wants to die. As if BuzzClick didn’t already have enough of a sexist reputation as it was, no, let’s jump right into Nice Guy territory! Jesus fuck…

“Interesting…” Gleb mutters, because of course he does. This whole thing is a fucking joke. “We would need an alpha male for the other half of the experiment, though.”

Dmitry wants to chuckle at the obvious jab toward his colleague, but then all eyes are on him, and his laugh dies in his throat. He blinks, once, twice, before he truly understands what basically everyone in the room is implying. “Nope. No way.”

“Why not?” Gleb asks in a very rhetorical tone.

Dmitry is having none of it. “Because you’re asking me to be an asshole to some random woman just to prove a very sexist and offensive point like I’m some guy on Reddit who has no idea women are actually people?”

The tension in the room is so thick you could cut it with a butter knife, but Dmitry refuses to look away from his boss, defiant. He knows it to be useless, of course -- you either obey Gleb or pack up and leave, tail between your legs. But he would like to think he is making a point, even though his colleagues are exactly the Reddit type he was talking about. Not exactly the sharpest pencils in the box, the whole lot of them.

“How about,” Gleb starts, his tone saccharine sweet, “You do this, and I have a look at this little article of yours?”

A muscles spasms in Dmitry’s jaw. He hates this situation very fucking much. And yet, still. “Fine.”

“Good. You both have ten days to find a chick and give her all you’ve got. Let’s see how long the poor girls last.”

It’s all a game to them, and Dmitry finds himself a reluctant player. 

His father would be ashamed.

 

…

 

Anastasia has always thought that, out of the five of them, Maria’s smile was the brightest. She smiles with her entire body, not just her mouth, and it makes her all the prettier. It is especially obvious tonight, Maria losing her natural shy demeanour to smile and laugh as she recalls a story. Anastasia’s chin is in her hand as she leans on the table and listens, with a smile of her own, her fingers playing with the straw in her cocktail.

“And this morning, she sent three dozen roses to my office. Three dozens, Nastya!” she exclaims loudly.

It is when Alexei comes back from the bar, shouldering his way through the crowd to drop three shots of vodka on the table. He winks at Anastasia before sitting down by her side. “Sounds to me like Masha finally found her match.”

“Nana will be so proud,” Anastasia adds with her chin up and a shake of the head, making her little brother laugh.

Even if neither of them say so out loud, they all know it wasn’t always that easy -- Nana may be a great many things, kind and loving and so much more, but accepting that one of her granddaughters was gay, well. Let’s just say it was a process. But maybe it will be better now that Maria has found someone she loves and who loves her back. Anastasia hopes so. Nana still has Olga and Tanya to give her as many great-grandchildren as she wishes, after all.

“Know what it means, though,” Alexei adds with a elbow to Anastasia’s side, which makes Maria laugh.

Yes. She knows it all too much, and is not exactly looking forward to it. Anastasia grabs the shot of vodka in front of her, downs it, and winces. The alcohol burns down her throat and stomach, but doesn’t calm her nerves. Quite the contrary.

“Yes, because god forbid I have a good, fulfilling job and an apartment of my own, if I’m not also married with children. My celibacy eclipses all my other achievements in life.”

“What kind of feminist nonsense,” Maria jokes, and laughs when Anastasia throws a peanut at her face. She dodges it easily, and retaliates with the cherry from her cocktail. It hits Anastasia’s nose, and Maria’s next words hit right where it hurts. “Like you know how to be in a relationship anyway.”

She gapes at her older sister. “What does that even mean?”

Maria gives her the best Olga look she can muster, the one the eldest sister always favours when one of the youngest -- often Alexei -- does or says something wrong. But where it is effective with Olga, it is lost on Maria’s kind features and gentle eyes. Anastasia only scoffs at her in reply.

“It means, when was the last time you dated someone, Nastya?” Alexei asks.

She glares at him, the traitor. “I’ll have you know I date a lot of people.”

“When was the last time you dated someone for more than a day?” Maria clarifies.

Which. Not helping. Anastasia opens her mouth even as she keeps thinking, but not a single name comes to her mind. True, she hasn’t dated a lot of men in her life, but she doesn’t see what is wrong with that. It’s not like she needs to be dated someone to have a fulfilling life, and it’s not like she feels lonely. She likes being on her own, and doesn’t particularly envy her sisters for being married with children. It’s never been something she’s wanted for herself, and she won’t force herself to want something she doesn’t need.

Of course, Nana doesn’t see it this way, and Nana will soon decide that Anastasia is too old to be single. Which will lead to a procession of dates with proper Russian gentlemen, all of it arranged by her grandmother. Anastasia doesn’t particularly look forward to it, even if she can see it looming in a corner ever since she blew her twenty-fifth candle.

“Aloysha is single too. I don’t see anyone doing anything about that.”

“I’m busy,” Alexei replies. It’s his go-to answer, and it always works. Because he’s the only one in the family who’s still at university, now working on his doctorate in history. “I don’t have time for socialising.”

Anastasia offers him an unimpressed stare, even more so at his innocent smirk when he downs his shot of vodka. “I’m busy too and yet…”

“Come on, Nastya. Just admit it.” Anastasia directs her stare toward her sister. “You simply suck at dating.”

“I don’t -- I’m not --  _ no _ !” she sputters. “I could date if I wanted to. I just don’t want to.”

“Oh really?” Maria singsongs. The mischievous look doesn’t suit her. “Wanna bet on it?”

Alexei snorts a laugh into his beer, but otherwise doesn’t comment, leaving both sisters to stare at each other -- one challenging, the other murderous. It reminds Anastasia of all the bets they had as children, to climb trees and steal candies and annoy Nana’s employees. It often ended in one or two of them grounded and, on a particularly gruesome occasion, in Alexei spending a week at the hospital for a nasty-looking bruise despite his meds.

Sadly for herself, Anastasia has never been one to back down from their games and challenges. “What kind of bet?”

“Let’s say,” Maria starts and purses her lips, stirring her cocktail with the straw. “When is Nana’s gala again?”

“Next Wednesday,” Alexei chimes in.

“Next Wednesday. I bet you can’t find a guy tonight, in this bar, and keep him until next Wednesday. Prove me wrong and introduce him to Nana during the gala. As your boyfriend.”

“A guy?  _ Any _ guy?” 

Maria sits a little straighter in her chair, looking around her at the crowd of people. She seems to be scanning each and every one of the men in the room, pondering on each one, until her eyes sparkle and a smile stretches her lips. She raises a hand to point one finger at someone across the room. “ _ This _ guy!”

 

…

 

Dmitry tries not to cringe too much, but it’s a lost battle at this point. His colleagues are all gathered around a table, piece of paper and pen between them, laughing like assholes at the list they are making. Mainly, the list of shit Dmitry will have to do for this stupid fucking article. They’re having a blast about it, like they made it their life’s goal to traumatise a poor girl for clicks, and it makes him sick in the stomach to witness it.

Why he accepted, Dmitry will never know. It goes against his integrity, as a journalist and as a man, but those kinds of jobs just don’t fall in your lap every day. He had to fight to become a journalist, even a shitty one, and it’s not like any publication is going to open their arms to him when he only has BuzzClick on his resume. So it’s either do this shit or go back to working at McDonald’s, and he’s had his share of customer service to last him a century.

He stands up suddenly at one particularly bad joke, deciding that he needs more alcohol if he’s going to survive the night. His beer is lukewarm by now, and he wants something stronger to settle the uncomfortable feeling in his stomach.

He barely makes it to the counter before someone shows up by his side, and he’s ready to give a mouthful to whichever colleague followed him. Only it’s not them. It’s possibly the prettiest girl he’s ever seen -- a head smaller than he is, with strawberry blonde hair and mesmerizing eyes. He can’t tell which colour they are in the darkness of the bar, blue or grey or something else. But beautiful, they definitely are beautiful, and so is she.

“Hi. I’m Anya.”

There is confidence in her tone and the way she holds herself, and Dmitry can’t look away. He’s always loved a woman who knows what she wants, and tonight is no different. “Dmitry. Want something to drink?”

She frowns at him, just for a moment, before she asks, “ ру́сский?”

The use of his native language takes him by surprise, even more so coming from a woman with such a flawless French accent. He couldn’t have guessed, but he knows his French to be slightly rough around the edges. Just enough to be recognised by fellow Russians and to categorise him as ‘not from here’ by some. “ Санкт-Петербу́рг,” he replies with ease.

“Пу́шкин,” she says. Ah. Not so far from where he grew up, then. Neighbours, even. Then, switching back to French, “But I’ve been living here since I was a little girl. And a Cosmo, please.”

Dmitry grins at her, before he manages to catch the attention of a bartender. “Cosmo and a vodka on the rocks, please.” Then, turning back to her, “My mother and I moved to France when I was ten. Lyon, not Paris. That came after.”

“Interesting,” she says, and takes a step closer to him. “And what brought you to Paris?”

Damn, but those eyes. He can’t look away from them, even when she offers him a mysterious smile and blinks down. There is something about them, and her, that have Dmitry want to know more, to know everything. It’s never happened before, and he has his fair share of experience with women. But her… Her!

It takes Dmitry a few seconds to remember she asked a question. “Journalism. Well, if you can call it that, really.” He wrinkles his nose. “I work for BuzzClick.”

She makes a face. Yeah, BuzzClick has that reputation. “Top ten worst websites of all time. You will not believe number four!”

He laughs and, just in time, grabs their drink and hands her the colourful cocktail. “Yeah, something like this. Not proud of it, but it does pay the bills. What about you?”

She takes a sip of her drink, looking at him above the rim of the glass and beneath her lashes, and Dmitry’s knees go weak. Damn, but he’s a goner. “I’m in charge of the Truth Of My Dreams foundation.”

Dmitry blinks at her, speechless for a moment. Because of course she would be in charge of such a foundation, making the dreams of almost-dying children come true all over the world. Of course she would.

“Beautiful  _ and _ selfless,” he can’t help but comment. It makes her blush and look away, even more so when he finds the nerve to go on, “Wanna get out of here?”

When she looks back at him, there is a determination and hunger in her eyes like he’s never seen before. Dmitry makes a silent thanks to the universe because, whatever he did right, he sure didn’t deserve that beautiful of a twist of fate.

“Yes, please,” she says, and takes his hand.

He ignores the grins and hoots of his colleagues as they leave the bar.


	2. Monday (2)

His place is everything Anya expected of a bachelor pad -- one-room flat with minimalist furniture and muted colours, with the bed in a corner and the kitchen in the other, a bunch of clothes discarded on a chair. She notices a pile of books next to the bed, and some pictures pinned to the fridge, but it is the frame on the wall that steals her attention. She goes to stand in front of it, tilting her head slightly to the side, as she admires the picture.

“Griboyedov Canal?” she asks.

There is the double sound of beer bottles being opened before Dmitry comes to her side and hands her one. She takes a sip, and smiles at him. “Yes,” he replies simply with a smile of his own. “It’s my favourite view of Petersburg.”

“I don’t remember much of it,” she admits. “I was five the last time I was there.”

“Never went back?”

“No, we…” She trails off, wondering how much to reveal about herself. It is not a part of her past she shares easily, but a fellow Russian might understand. “My father was a politician. Not a well-liked one. He passed a series of laws that were not all that well received and. Well. They said it was a car accident, him and my mother, but. We all know what really happened. My siblings and I were spending the summer with our Nana, and we never went back. Never felt safe going back.”

Dmitry doesn’t reply anything and, when Anya chances a glance his way, he is staring at the frame instead of looking at her. He takes a sip of his beer and swallows hard, before he asks, “You’re one of Romanov’s daughters, aren’t you?”

There is no denying it, really. “Yeah. The youngest.”

He nods, and takes another sip of beer, but says nothing for long minutes. Anya wonders if she blew it -- politic and murder, nothing better to set the mood -- but then Dmitry says, “My father was a journalist. He wanted to show everyone how corrupted the government is and… Well let’s say some people are really good at making other people disappear. My mother waited a full week before she understood what had happened. We ran to Moscow, and then to France. Never looked back.”

“Dmitry…” Her tongue feels like leed in her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

He makes a face, at first, and then sighs. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. At least he died for his convictions and taught me to believe in mine.” He snorts a sad laugh. “And yet here I am.”

“Hey…” Her hand brushes against his forearm, barely more than a caress at first, before her fingers wrap around his wrist. He looks down at her, the turmoil in his eyes leaving place to something gentler. For a moment, Anya forgets this is all a bet between Maria and her, forgets she didn’t even pick him herself, because. Well because she can’t deny this connection they seem to have, can’t deny the pull of her body toward his and how she feels like they understand each other so well. 

He looks down at her, and licks his lips, and Anya forgets all about the bet when she rises on her tiptoes to kiss him. He tastes like beer at first, his lips soft and pliant against hers. Her hand still holds his wrist, but his other hand rises to cup her face, before it travels to her neck. He takes a step closer in a sigh, deepening the kiss, and Anya stops thinking.

Her arms snake around his neck as she presses herself against him, her breasts against his chest, a moan on her lips when he replies by pulling her even tighter. His hands are everywhere then -- travelling up and down her sides, into her hair, before one lands on the small of her back. She arches against him and he gets the message, because seconds later he holds her up and drops her on his small kitchen table.

Her legs open to welcome him, his hands grabbing her thighs. He’s close, so very close, and she crosses her ankles at his back as if to prevent him from escaping. As if he would go anywhere.

Dmitry breaks away from the kiss, leaving Anya breathless and panting before he steals a moan from her when his lips find the pulsing point on her neck. That will leave a mark in the morning, probably, but she doesn’t care. Not when her body is on fire, not when her mind is empty but for the echo of his name.

“Dmitry…” she whispers. But then her hands are on his shoulders, pushing him away. “We should -- we should slow down.”

He runs a hand through his hair, blinking down at her. His pupils are blown, his cheek red, and his combed hair is now a perfect disaster. She’s never seen a more enticing sight. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, you…”

He stops, and stares at her. She stares back.

They kiss again.

Slower this time, his hands cupping her cheeks with a gentleness that has nothing to do with the hurry of before. He takes his time, dropping a few open-mouthed kisses on her mouth before his nose rubs against hers and makes her giggle. He smiles against her mouth, too, even more so when she grabs his shirt to pull him close again.

Anya doesn’t know how long they stay there, just kissing, but she can’t say she minds. Not when he does it so perfectly, stroking the fire in her belly with each passing second. She loves it that way, slow and sensual, with his hands warm against her skin and his mouth burning against hers.

Before long, her fingers find their way under his shirt, and she laughs at the way his stomach clenches to the touch. He hisses and nibbles on her lip, which makes her smirk in return. Still, he doesn’t protest when she tugs on the fabric, instead raising his arms to get rid of it. The shirt is thrown on the floor, and her eyes widen at the sight in front of her.

“Нихуя себе!” she mutters, which makes him chuckle.

“Thanks,” he replies, biting down on his bottom lip.

Not that she notices all that much, when her eyes are too busy roaming the expanse of his chest. Well defined muscles stretching under sun-kissed skin -- and god knows how he manages to do that, not like the weather has been kind in Paris lately. A scatter of freckles all over his shoulders and collarbones, dark stars on a beautiful canvas.

Anya’s mouth goes dry even as her hands move to grab his waist and pull him closer. She kisses his collarbone first, a brush of her lips against his warm skin that has him gasp in surprise. Perhaps it is this sound -- soft, unassuming -- that keeps her going, that has her want to kiss each freckle, discover every inch of his body. It should scare her, how much she wants, but Anya can’t find it in herself to care right now. Not when she can’t remember the last time she let herself  _ want _ as much as she does right now.

Dmitry breaks her exploration of his torso with two fingers under her chin, tilting her head up so he can kiss her again. She eagerly complies, even more so when he whispers “Bed?” against her lips and grabs her thighs. He holds her up, legs around his waist, arms around his neck, and lays her on the mattress, towering above her. In the darkness of his flat, his eyes are black as night; it stirs something within her, pride at being an object of desire.

Her top soon joins his shirt on the floor, followed by her shoes, his trousers, her skirt. He kisses her breast above the cups of her bra, kisses his way down her stomach, teases her until she sighs and moans. Before she knows it, he strips her bare, runs his hands up her legs, down her sides. Before she knows it, a whimper escapes her at the feeling of his fingers against her, rubbing and teasing. He’s a fast learner, adapting to her gasping noises until her back arches, until her legs tremble and his name rolls on her tongue. She spasms and clenches around his fingers, tumbling from the edge when he whispers sweet nothings into her ear -- Russian and French words alike, a language of its own.

She is still panting, eyes closed, mouth half-opened, when he leans to the side and opens a drawer. Sound of wrapping paper being torn opened, before Dmitry settles back between her legs and kisses her cheek. There is a tenderness to it that doesn’t usually come with one-night stands, and it makes her smile. Even more so when she opens her eyes and see the gentle look in his eyes, even more so when he brushes his knuckles against her jaw.

“You okay?” he asks softly.

She snorts a laugh and wraps her arms around his neck, pulls him down for a kiss. “Never been better,” she admits.

He grins into the kiss, and chuckles at her strangled gasp when, in one trust, her enters her. She grabs his arms, the need to just hold on to him too strong, when he starts moving inside her. She’s sensitive from her orgasm, but still she arches her back, still she soon gets into a rhythm with him. He grabs her thigh, pulls it up so that the angle changes, so that he hits a spot deeper inside her, and Anya forgets to think, to breathe.

Her voice is hoarse when she whispers for him to go faster, here, just right here, like that, before it dissolves into nothing as Dmitry lowers his head to kiss her breast. His mouth wraps around her nipple, tongue playing with it, teeth grazing and making her gasp. He moves his attention to the second one after, while she holds onto his hair, his shoulders, his everything. He keeps her grounded, makes her flight with each slap of his hips against hers.

But then, soon, too soon, Dmitry’s body tenses against her, his rhythm stuttering a little. He raises his head to meet her eyes, and she tries not to overthink it, not to ponder too much on their easy connection, what it means, what it is. Not when he crashes his lips against hers, not when his mouth tastes like lust and desperation.

“Anya, I just… I…”

She kisses his cheek, his jaw, his neck. “It’s okay,” she coaxes him. “Dmitry, it’s okay.”

The movement of his hips gets more desperate, fever in his rhythm, before he stills with a groan of her name on his lips. His mouth is back on hers as he comes inside her, his fingers leaving bruises on her leg and waist, his body heavy and warm above her. It’s perfect, in its own way.

Her hand runs through his hair while they both catch their breath -- easier for her than him, because he keeps dropping kisses along her collarbone. Insatiable, or so it seems. How this man is single, she doesn’t understand. A mystery of its own, perhaps.

There is no awkwardness when he finally rolls off her and gets rid of the condom, nor when she asks where the bathroom is and goes to clean herself. She barely recognizes the woman in the mirror -- well-kissed and well-fucked, with red bruises down her neck and breasts, hair a mess and pupils blown. Anya likes this picture of her, happy, satisfied.

She grabs a tank top that seems clean from the basket in the corner, puts it on before going back to the main room. He’s still in bed, his eyes never wavering away from her as she makes her way back to him and to his bed. One arm around her body to pull her flush against his side, lips to her cheek. She smiles.

“So…” he says after a while -- his voice deeper, smooth. “Anya, short for Anna?”

A giggle escapes her. “Nastya, short for Anastasia. But only my family calls me that.” He raises a curious eyebrow, and Anya finds herself blushing for the first time that night. “I was obsessed with Roman Holiday when I was a child. You know, forcing everyone to watch it five times a day until the VHS was unreadable, that kind of thing. I wanted everyone to call me Anya Smith, because I’d decided I was a princess but I wanted to lead a normal life. I even refused to answer when people were using my real name, that’s how ridiculous the whole thing was. I guess the nickname just never went away after that.”

He smiles at her, but it soon turns into a smirk. “You sound like a brat.”

She gasps, and hits his chest, which only makes him laugh more. “Very funny,” she comments, even if she can’t put as much venom into her voice as she’d like. “What about you? Dmitry. Mitya or…”

“Dima,” he finishes for her. “Haven’t been called that in a very long while, though.”

“Shame. It suits you.”

He smiles, and kisses her again. Before soon, she is lying on her stomach by his side, arms folded in front of her -- she doesn’t miss the way his eyes distractingly travel down every so often to the view she’s offering. He plays with her hair, and they talk. About her job, and how she decided she wanted to help children when she was one herself. Too many hours spent in hospitals because of Alexei’s haemophilia, before they managed to get the right dosage for his meds. Too many hours spent in the paediatric ward, looking at sick, dying children. She wanted to help, somehow, and so she convinced her grandmother to create a charity. One she runs now, with much success.

She tells him French comes more easily to her than Russian. That she had to adapt to a new life in Paris at such a young age, sometimes she even wonders what is Russian about her. She doesn’t remember her country, barely has memories of her parents. Only speaks her mother tongue when she’s angry, or taken by surprise, or complaining about things in public with her siblings.

They talk about his childhood in Lyon, and all the crazy teenage nonsense he went through. He tells her about the trouble that would always find him, about messing with the wrong crowd and learning to fight the hard way. He tells her about smoking and hiding it from his mother, drinking too much, until he realised he was wasting his life away. He tells her about moving to Paris for university, struggling with his studies, struggling with finding a job. The hellish years in BuzzClick, writing shit he doesn’t care about not believes in.

They talk, and talk, and talk, until Anya forgets it has only been a few hours of knowing him. That easy connection, it’s like she’s known him all her life, and she owes it to a stupid bet and her sister’s lucky pick. Anya tries not to dwell on it for too long, least guilt comes gnawing at her.

Dmitry’s eyelids grow heavy then, and he snuggles against her arm. Her heart grows three sizes bigger at the sight, which makes it all the more difficult to move away and stand up. His eyes snatch open immediately, hurt dancing in them. “You don’t have to go,” he tells her, small, almost vulnerable, when he sees her grabbing her small purse.

She opens it, waves her phone at him. “I need to text my brother,” she explains, before she goes back to bed. To him. “He’s going to worry if he doesn’t hear from me.”

Dmitry hums a little, and goes back to snuggling the moment she’s next to him again. Anya grins, and kisses the top of his head, before she opens her phone. There are fifteen notifications in the OTMA group chat, which she elects to ignore for now. She neither have the strength nor the will to deal with all three of her sisters right now. Instead, she opens her conversation with Alexei, and type a quick message.

He replies a few seconds later, having her snort a laugh at his use of emojis.

 

She also has two new messages from Maria, which. Anya hesitates, just for a moment. The heavy reminder as to why, exactly, she is in this bed, it’s like a cold shower, a painful wakeup call. She tries to put things into perspective, just a little. So, okay, she only approached Dmitry because Maria picked him at random, which isn’t exactly the best way to start any kind of relationship, but. But. Whatever happened after that, it was real. It is real. They opened up, and shared their past and, let’s be honest, had the best sex of Anya’s life. Just because it started as a bet, doesn’t mean it can’t turn into something different. Something more.

He wanted her to spend the night, for once. Anya may not have a lot of experience on the subject, but she knows enough not to be stupid about it. Men like Dmitry don’t let women stay the night if it’s just for a one off. They put them in a Uber, and promise to call, and never do. So… So, there. That’s that.

She opens Maria’s texts, with a smile to herself.

 

Dmitry shifts in his sleep, and Anya switches off her phone, puts in on the floor. Whatever Maria wants to reply to that, it can wait until morning. For now, Anya lies down and closes her eyes, not even fighting a smile when Dmitry all but manhandles her until she is in his arms, pressed against his side. With her head on his chest, she hears the soft beating of his heart against her ear. It lulls her to sleep.


	3. Tuesday (1)

When she wakes up, it takes Anya several moments to remember she is not in her own bed. The mattress is harder than she is used to, the pillows not as fluffy, and the sharp smell of sex lingers on the sheets and invades her nose. She stretches and smiles at the memory of  last night's activities, even more so when her sore muscles protest to the movements. The bed, as well as the rest of the flat, is empty though, and deception settles in her stomach. It would have been nice to wake up in his arms. 

Anya takes a few more minutes before she gets out of bed, padding around to collect her clothes. That’s when she notices the small paper bag on the table, set next to a note. It deliciously smells of fresh pains au chocolat, but still she takes the note first. 

‘Hope you slept well. Sorry I had to go to work. Feel free to stay as long as you want, just slam the door behind you. Would like to see you again. -Dima”

He’s scribbled his phone number down too, all ten digits teasing her in their black ink glory. She hesitates for a moment, before she grabs one pastry and bites in it. Mouth full, she goes back to the bed and takes her phone. It is not Dmitry’s number she dials though. 

Maria picks up after the second tone. “Oh my god, Nastya! What the fuck?” is the first thing coming out of her sister’s mouth. “You leave with some random guy after, like, five minutes. You tell our little brother you had sex in the middle of the night. You send me some mushy nonsense about the guy. What kind of romcom movie bullshit? I told you to date the guy, not to turn into Meg Ryan!”

Out of the four of them, Olga and Tatiana have always been the most level-headed, mature ones, probably because they were old enough to remember their parents’ tragedy. The Little Pair, as Nana dubbed Maria and Anastasia, have always had more fiery tempers, definite chatterboxes. But this is a bit much, even for Maria.

Anya rolls her eyes, even if she can’t help but reply, “He bought me pains au chocolat for breakfast.”

Maria’s strangle groan makes her laugh. “Are you still at his place?”

“Yeah. He’s at work, though.”

“Then what are you waiting for? Snoop around!” There is a pause, then, “Seriously, no man is perfect. If he’s got dirt, you need to find it stat.”

Anya shoves the rest of the pastry in her mouth, replying around a mouthful. “What do you know about men anyway?” 

Maria cackles. Still, Anya does just that, snooping around, because she was wondering too. If he’s in the middle of a dirty divorce, or he’s a serial killer, or he leaves the toilet lid up, she needs to know. So she starts with the kitchen, and the fridge; a bunch of take-away menus and a couple of pictures, him and some older guy grinning, beers in hand. In another, he’s sitting next to the same guy, and to a much more familiar face.

“He knows Lily,” she comments idly.

“Lily? Our Lily?”

Anya rolls her eyes. “No, some random Lily we don’t know.  _ Of course _ our Lily.” She doesn’t let Maria reply before she adds, “Oh yeah, he’s Russian by the way.”

She’s a little bit concerned that her sister is going to choke on her own laughter, but. Well, it’s Maria. She’s seen worse. “Jesus, if I’d wanted to do it on purpose…”

Anya keeps looking around the kitchen but, beside a very sad and empty fridge, an impressive collection of beer glasses, and potatoes mutating into monsters under the sink, she doesn’t find anything worth mentioning. Maria is still running commentary in the background as she goes, this or that about how Nana is going to love that Anya found herself a Russian boy, how sad she was that Tatiana, then Maria, went for French options instead. Anya tries to tune her out, merely because she doesn’t want to think about what Nana will have to say about Dmitry. A lower-class, clickbait-worthy journalist isn’t exactly high on Nana’s list of perfect husbands for her granddaughters, after all.

She does find a bunch of video game consoles next to the television, some of them she is familiar with, and some comics among the books on his shelf. Still, nothing compares to the little, singsong ‘oooh’ of surprise that escapes her when she opens the drawer of his bedside table.

“What?  _ What! _ ” comes Maria’s high-pitched voice.

“Condoms. Lube. And…” She finds herself blushing like a virgin girl, how embarrassing. “Erotic massage oil.”

Maria says something very uncalled-for in Russian, before she laughs again. “Well, you can always mix pleasure with pleasure.”

Anya feels herself blushing all the way up to her roots even as she closes the drawer and stands up, chasing away the images that jump at the front-end of her mind. She forces herself to check the bathroom next but, beside an unhealthy collection of colognes, she doesn’t find anything too aggravating. Time to face the music: either Dmitry doesn’t have anything to hide, or hides it very well indeed.

“When are you seeing him next?” Maria asks from the speakers, while Anya finally dresses herself. She keeps the tank top under her own shirt, just because.

“I don’t know. I’ll text him right after to make plans.” She swallows and buckles her belt, before she adds, “This is a stupid bet.”

“You can back down now if you want.”

It says quite a lot about the sense of competition that runs in the family, when she replies, “He doesn’t have to know it’s a bet.”

She can almost see Maria’s smile when she replies in a very soft voice, “I’d forgotten how stupid you are when you have a crush, Malenkaya.”

Anya’s lips twitch a little, but she doesn’t take the easy bet. Instead, she bids her sister goodbye, promises to keep her updated, and hangs up. She slides into her shoes next, and grabs her handbag, checking one last time if she has everything with her. Lunch time is soon approaching, after all, and Alexei will be teasing her enough as it is for her to add being late on top of everything. Still, she snatches the note from the table and adds Dmitry’s contact number to her phone before she leaves.

For safe-keeping.

 

…

 

Dmitry spots Gleb the moment he enters BuzzClick’s office, and sneakily tries to turn around and call it a day. Sadly for him, Gleb is a fucking shark and barks his name immediately, with an order to meet him in his office. Chopin’s Funeral March plays in his head as Dmitry makes his way to his desk to drop his phone, jacket, and kick his helmet under his chair. Vlad is giving him a sad but placarding look, which Dmitry ignores as he turns around and walks toward Gleb’s office.

If there is a shittier way to start his working day, they probably haven’t invented it yet.

“The boys say you met a girl last night,” is how Gleb decides to start the conversation. Which. Asshole. Bastards.

Dmitry closes the door behind him, both to allow himself a few seconds and find his composure, and to make sure nobody can hear whatever comes next. Because he sure as hell doesn’t want those morons to hear what can only be a mortifying conversation. “Yes,” he admits, because there is no point in lying to Gleb at this point. They probably took pictures for proof and blackmail, knowing them.

“Good. You can start on the article straight away, then.”

Dropping a bucket of cold water over his head would have been less painful. Dmitry stills, heart in his throat, and forgets to breathe for a second. He feels suddenly light-headed, like he’s going to throw up his breakfast all over Gleb’s desk. Which would be a good way to escape this situation, but still.

“I can’t do that,” is his go-to answer, even though he perfect knows Gleb doesn’t like to be contradicted.

And, indeed, a vein pulses on his boss’ forehead as he, too slowly, too calmly, folds his arms on his desk to lean toward Dmitry and glare at him. “And why is that?”

Before he can even think of a proper answer, he can hear himself saying, “Because I actually like the girl.”

Which, true. But also not helping. Because if he’s honest with himself, truly honest, it shouldn’t matter whether or not he likes the girl. No woman should be put through this bullshit, used and abused for a controversial article only designed to go viral and give them ad revenue. Even if he didn’t like Anya all that much -- which he does, holy shit, that woman is perfect -- or if it were another woman, he wouldn’t want to keep doing that shit. He’s better than this on so many levels.

Still, one particularly selfish part of him doesn’t want to use Anya for one reason, and one reason alone. He doesn’t want to drive her away, he wants to keep her to himself. And he knows damn fucking well Gleb’s bullshit will have her running for the hills fast, not that he can blame her for it. No woman should put up with that much of sexist assholery on purpose.

“Oh, you like her,” Gleb echoes in a mocking voice. “Good thing for you women love that kind of alpha male shit you have going on, right?”

_ Who hurt you as a child, _ Dmitry wants to ask, but he bites down on his tongue instead. He knows better than to argue with Gleb’s particular brand of dude bro, after all. Been here, done that too many times, and with too little results.

“How about…” Gleb goes on, unaware of Dmitry’s murderous thoughts. He grabs a post-it on his desk, and scribbles on it, before passing it to Dmitry. The digits written down have his eyes widening. “You write the article, and you get this nice bonus?”

It would definitely help with paying Mama’s new car, what with the old one that broke down last month. Or at the very least pay for a nice holiday somewhere with a lot of sun and beaches and cocktails with little colourful umbrellas. She deserves a nice treat, after all the shit she’s been through these past two decades.

Still. Anya. Beautiful, perfect Anya.

“What if I refuse?”

There is no kindness in the grin Gleb offers, only darkness. “Well, not only will you be fired, but I’ll also make sure you never find a job in our field every again. Here, England, America. Nobody will ever hire you, I promise.”

Dmitry swallows, and nods. “I’d better go back to work, then.”

“Yes, you do that.” Dmitry crumbles the post-it in his closed fist, and makes it to the door, before Gleb stops him again. “Oh and, Sudayev? If I find out that she knows about the article, you’re fired too.”

It takes all of Dmitry’s will not to slam the door behind him and stomp back to his desk like a petty child in the middle of a tantrum. He does let himself fall in his chair as ungracefully as he can, though, and ignores Vlad’s raised eyebrow and concerned face. Staring at his computer screen while it switches on is a much better use of his time, forcing himself to breathe deeply not to explode and start yelling. He can almost hear his mother telling him not to grit his teeth or they will fall down, all the way from Lyon.

_ Hope you’re proud of me, _ Mama, he thinks bitterly.  _ Papa sure wouldn’t be. _

What’s-his-name who had the brilliant idea and is writing the other half of the article has already shared a document with his preliminary notes and ideas, and Dmitry grabs his headphones. The next hour or so is spent going through the notes and adding his own while blasting some angry rock songs as loud as he can. Maybe he’ll go deaf and won’t have to listen to Gleb’s bullshit anyone. That would be a relief.

When he finally gets a text from an unknown number, his heart plummets in his stomach.

 

…

 


	4. Tuesday (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year everyone! 2018 is the year I'm going to NYC to see Anastasia, so it's an exciting one for me!

Unsurprisingly, Maria told Alexei everything the moment she hung up the phone, and Anya’s little brother teases her all through their lunch together. It’s only fair, after all, and she takes it with a smile and a roll of the eyes. It’s not like she has much time to think about it during the afternoon anyway, what with having a meeting with new investors for two hours then another meeting with people at Disneyland to go through all the details of their upcoming visit to the park.

It is only when she is back at their apartment, Nana off somewhere with her friends and Alexei watching tv in the living room, that Anya comes to a stop. In front of her wardrobe. She has nothing to wear. Well, she has a lot of clothes, mind you, but nothing to wear, which is such a problem. She tries on about five different dresses and six tops before she gives up and glares at her wardrobe. This is so not helping. Neither is texting Maria, whose advice is less than helpful.

It’s not even an official date, she reminds herself, only two people hanging out together. But Maria was right. Anya isn’t really good at this entire dating business, neither is she comfortable with it. Well, she sucks at it, really. She has no idea what to do, if she should shave her legs, prepare in any way.

Twenty minutes and a meltdown later, she sets her mind on a black skirt and white shirt, her hair loose around her face, light makeup. Just enough to show she made an effort, not too much to be overwhelming. If Maria’s thumb-up emoji as an answer to her selfie is anything to go by, Anya did the right choice.

She still worries all the way to Dmitry’s place -- the Uber driver not happy at her ripping into tiny pieces the old receipt she found in her pocket -- and feels as if her heart is in her stomach when she enters his building. It’s only been a few hours since she left the place, but the thought doesn’t exactly sooth her nerves.

She knocks after long seconds of anxiety-ridden hesitation, only to be welcomed by Dmitry’s booming voice telling her the door is unlocked. Her fingers wrap around the handle as she frowns, even more so at the scene in front of her when Anya finally opens the door.

Dmitry, sitting cross-legged on the floor, headphones on and controller in hands, yelling both at his tv screen and into a mic. Killing zombies in some kind of video game. Oh,  _ great. _

He stops just long enough to flash her a grin and a wink, and Anya finds herself replying with barely more than a weak smile. “Hey, Nastya,” he says, before, “FUCK OFF, MATT!”

Anya swallows back a sigh as she drops her handbag on the table, before going to sit behind him on the bed. Without even looking away from the tv, Dmitry moves to sit by her side and, during a moment of peace in the game, quickly turns his head to kiss her cheek. That finally does the trick in bringing a real smile to her lips.

“Sorry about that,” he whispers to her. “Have to test and review this game for tomorrow.”

Oh. “Do you want me to go?”

“Of course no. It should be quick, don’t worry.”

‘Should be quick’ actually is two straight hours of Dmitry yelling at the screen and shit-talking whoever is playing online with him, which. Not exactly the kind of night Anya had in mind, lying on his bed and going through her emails, startling every five minutes or so when he yells a little too loudly. At least she’s being productive and no longer ignoring messages that have been in her inbox for way too long. 

(She’s really glad she didn’t shave her legs for this.)

She raises her head from her phone when Dmitry’s nonsensical monologue switches from French to Russian. Only then does Anya notice the game he is playing -- the exact same game Alexei has been playing for weeks, every night after coming back from the campus library. Some mindless zombie-shooting game they all seem to love so much, for reasons Anya will probably never understand.

“You’re doing it wrong,” she deadpans after five minutes of watching him try, and fail, to move on in the game.

“I’m not,” he replies in the same tone of voice. Only to get shot two seconds later.

“Sure bout that?” 

He tries again the exact same way, as if it would help, and then curses in Russian when it fails. Anya can’t help but snort a little, which earns her a glare from him. She smirks, and he sighs, and gets shot again, and curses. She’s sensing a pattern here. Rising to her knees, she moves closer to him on the bed, and opens her hand in front of him.

He glances at it, but decides to be stubborn, and gets shot again. Anya insults him under her breath. Dmitry glares at her then, and she glares back, waving her hand with a sense of finality. He huffs and puffs, but gives her the controller anyway. She grins at him, before she sits by his side, forcing herself not to think about the way her thigh is pressed against his or how she can feel his breath on the side of her face before he turns back toward the screen.

“See, the trick is…” She makes his character take a U-turn and enter an old building, climbing up the stairs and running toward a window. It’s five more minutes of jumping from rooftop to rooftop, dodging enemies’ attacks and dropping grenades, before she has the character exactly where she wants him to be.

Anya can’t help but throw a smug grin Dmitry’s way before she pushes one button. The controller vibrates between her hands as the enemy building explodes and turns to ash. From where she sits, she can hear all the offended gasps and yelps coming from his headphones. It makes her laugh.

Dmitry blinks at her, mouth slightly opened in an expression of shock and wonder. “How -- how did you do that?”

She hands him the controller back, chin high. “It’s called talent, Dima.”

“Yo, did we just get killed  _ by a girl?” _ comes from his headphones.

She leans closer to his face, if only to speak into the microphone. “Damn right you did, loser.”

It’s followed by a series of curses and insults, most of them typical of the kind of men playing those kinds of games, and Dmitry barely waits a few seconds before ripping the headphones from the television and switching off the console. He stays like this -- kneeling in front of the tv, his back to her -- for long seconds before he turns around to look at her. The same look of confused wonder still in his eyes, and it makes Anya look away.

“That was amazing,” he comments, before he comes back to sit next to her. Not closer, because they were already close as it was, but still close. Still close enough for Anya to lose herself into his brown eyes and blush when he cups her cheek. “Hi,” he says, softness in his voice.

“Hey,” she replies in an equally gentle whisper.

He brushes his lips against her, tentatively at first. She sighs against his mouth, and tilts her head to deepen the kiss, until she’s a little breathless. He grins. “How about pizza and Mario Kart?”

She snorts a laugh. “Sounds like a plan. I’m unbeatable on the Rainbow Road.”

He rolls his eyes. “Nobody is unbeatable on the Rainbow Road, stop bullshitting me.”

They order pizzas on Dmitry’s phone, before he throws a controller at her and switches another console on. Soon Anya is welcomed by the familiar tune of Mario Kart, and soon she finds herself shit-talking Dmitry during unforgiving races. He pushes her to the side in a desperate attempt at making her lose, and she slaps his hand every time he drives past her. 

The delivery guy arrives not long after that, and Anya finds herself telling Dmitry about her day as they wolf down the pizza and an entire bottle of coke. He tells her about the kind of bullshit articles he writes for BuzzClick -- video game reviews apparently an upgrade from the usual crap -- and makes her laugh with ridiculous imitations of his boss.

She’s finally having fun.

 

…

 

Dmitry runs downstairs to put the trash out -- nothing like the greasy smell of pizzas lingering in his flat for way too long. It leaves him time to think, and to reflect on the evening so far. Anya… He doesn’t know what he really expected out of Anya, to be honest, but it was not that. Of course, she’d told him she had a little brother, but what were the chances of her brother playing the game, and Anya knowing exactly what to do? Yes, slim, exactly.

It’s not like he exactly expected her to give up tonight. At least, he was hoping she wouldn’t. But she took it in stride, and found a way to surprise him. She’s been doing that a lot. Awaking things in him he didn’t even know exist. Like, how hot it is to see her playing video games. It’s not a kink. It shouldn’t be a kink. But it’s still hot.

It’s still hot when he comes back to his flat and she’s sitting cross-legged on his bed, tongue stuck between her teeth, her entire focus on the tv in front of her. She does that adorable thing where she turns the controller like it’s an actual wheel, and squeals in delight when she finishes the race in first place. Dmitry was never supposed to be insensible to that kind of stuff, it’s just impossible.

He sits by her side, grins when she hands him the second controller. Such a little thing, yet such a strong competitive spirit. Dmitry guesses it comes with being the youngest of four sisters, or something of the like. Not that he can relate.

“How about we make things more interesting?” he asks with a pointed rise of his eyebrow.

Anya turns to look at him with a smirk. Yes. Definitely a strong competitive spirit. “I’m listening.”

“Loser has to take off a piece of clothing after each race.”

She laughs, little wrinkles at the corners of her sparkling eyes. It hits him right where it hurts the most, under his breast bones and straight to his heart. Not for the first time today, he curses Gleb to hell and back. What a fucking asshole, to ruin everything between Anya and him before it even has time to properly start.

“Strip Mario Kart, really?”

Dmitry can’t help but throw a bait. “I mean, if you don’t want to because you’re too afraid to lose…”

Hook, line, and sinker. “Prepare to show some skin, Dmitry.”

He grins at her even as he starts a new race and focuses back on the game. He’s not that bad at Mario Kart anyway, he can totally do this. Anya must have a weakness somewhere, the previous races were luck as much as everything else. Right?

Twenty minutes later, he’s missing his shirt and both his shoes.

He can’t even be mad at her when she’s laughing so much, and kissing him, and kissing him again. The ugly little goblin in the corner of his mind tells him he could get used to this, pizzas and video games and the taste of her on his tongue. The ugly little goblin doesn’t know any better, and should shut the fuck up.


	5. Wednesday

Dmitry starts his working day with opening the Google Doc From Hell, like a good boy. His colleague hasn’t written his notes from yesterday yet, but there is already a plan for today’s bullshit, and Dmitry dreads the worst. He scrolls down, before rolling his eyes so much he’s afraid they got stuck at the back of his head for a second there.

> _ DAY 2: IGNORE HER _
> 
> _ Women are needy and crave the attention of their partner. What is worse for them than being ignored for an entire day, their texts left on read with no reply, their email pushed to the side? A woman will go crazy in a matter of hours when the world stops revolving around her. Perhaps a flood of texts is to be expected? _

Dmitry straight-up cackles at the paragraph. Is that guy for real? A glance to the top of the page tells him they both have the document opened in a tab right now, and the need to open the chat panel on the right just to ask his colleague if he has ever spoken to a woman, even just once, in his life… Yeah, the urge is strong.

At least he wrote ‘women’ instead of ‘females’? That’s… A start, Dmitry guesses? Not as profoundly misogynistic as it could have been? He’s just grasping at straws now.

Instead, he comments ‘A little short noticed, but okay.’ No need to broadcast the fact that, up until five minutes ago, he was texting Anya. Started texting Anya the moment he woke up, actually, because he didn’t want to get out of bed and he opened Facebook and there was a funny meme. A funny meme he wanted to share with her, for some reason. Because it would make her smile. Because he wanted to text her as early as eight in the morning, but ‘good morning darling’ sounded too cheesy. So instead he sent her a funny meme, and she replied with another one, and it was half an hour of this nonsense.

Thankfully for him, he always wakes up earlier than he needs and traffic is not a problem with his motorbike. So texting Anya didn’t even make him late to work, only in a good mood. As if the memories of last night -- making out on his bed, him half-naked, her still fully clothed, until she called a Uber and went home -- were not enough to have him in a good mood.

Except now he has a new text from Anya, and he can’t open it. Well, he can. He can’t reply to it, which is even worse. The idea of spending the day chatting with Anya made going to work more tolerable, if he has to be honest with himself. First, because she’s a fucking delight, and she makes him laugh, and she’s amazing. And second, well. Because if he shows how charming he is most of the time, it will make turning into an asshole once in a while less painful to her?

Straws. Grasping.

Fuck Gleb.

Dmitry closes his eyes and sighs, before he grabs his phone. She sent one of those cat-picture-with-a-comment-in-Russian-badly-translated-into-English things from Tumblr. Which, it’s adorable. He loves it. Especially because it’s two kittens kissing, with *тьмок* written in big white letters. It’s less a meme and more obvious flirting at this point and  _ he can’t fucking answer because his boss is a fucking asshole. _ He hates his life.

He flips his phone so the screen is against his desk, closes the Whatsapp web tab he usually has opened, and goes back to the Google Doc. He needs more coffee if he has to go through all of this without quitting on the spot. As if hearing his thoughts, Vlad is suddenly at his side, two fuming mugs in hands. Vlad, his saviour.

“You look like you need some liquid comfort,” the older man says.

“I love you so much right now,” Dmitry replies without even an ounce of sarcasm in his voice. He moans a little at the coffee, even more so when the after-taste of whiskey hits him and Vlad smirks. 

Vlad. 

His fucking saviour.

“Don’t let them get you down,” Vlad says in hushed tones. “I… If you want, I may have some contacts in London.”

Dmitry’s eyes widen, just a little. “What.”

His friend shrugs, before he leans against the desk. Mug to his lips, to hide his mouth from wandering eyes. “Lily, she knows people. We can find you something, if you want.”

Dmitry’s mouth must be hanging open at this point. He picks it from the floor, and blinks in confusion several times. “You’d do that? For me?”

Vlad chuckles, his almost-but-not-quite Santa laugh, and puts a hand on Dmitry’s shoulder. “You’re wasting your potential here. All those idiots, they don’t matter much. But you, you’re not supposed to be here.”

“What about you?” Dmitry finds himself asking, because. Well. He can’t think of much else right now, to be honest.

Vlad’s only response is a shrug, at first, and for a moment Dmitry believes he will leave it at that. But the older man takes a sip of his coffee, before he replies, “I don’t mind. It keeps me busy, and that’s all I need.”

Dmitry blinks again. It doesn’t chase away the confusion. But then he remembers his nice little discussion with Gleb yesterday, and the threats, and his mood goes sour once again. “I need to finish this first,” he says with a glare at the screen. “I need this article. I need to finish it. I need… nerves of steel.”

Vlad squeezes his shoulder once more, as if he understands perfectly what Dmitry means behind this babbling nonsense. And perhaps he does, who knows. “I will tell Lily to ask around, okay? You can work on your resignation letter in the meanwhile.”

“You’re the fucking best.”

“Don’t I know it,” Vlad answers, raising his mug, before he goes back to his own desk.

Dmitry smiles at him, then to himself. He rolls his shoulders and cracks his knuckles, before focusing back on his computer screen. He can do this. He fucking can do this, and he will. And anyway, he has a paragraph to write, one filled to the brim with praises about his girlfriend’s video game skills. He can fucking do this.

 

…

 

Anya gets stuck in one meeting after another today, which is good for her brain, but not so much for her nerves. It’s stressful, to jump from a meeting to a professional lunch to a reunion about their annual budget, to a meeting with parents. Too many things to remembers, to write down, to check. She carries her professional tablet and her huge filofax everywhere she goes, a pen tucked behind her ear, but it doesn’t stop her brain from frying halfway through the day.

Thankfully for her, she gets a full hour break in the middle of the afternoon, just enough for her to hide in her office with a cup of tea. Closed door, switched-off computer, phone on silence. Nothing but boiling tea and some chocolate cookies.

And, apparently, Alexei keeping her company.

“You mind?” he asks, even if he doesn’t wait her answer to enter her office and throw himself on the couch she keeps there for informal meetings. His messenger bag falls to the floor, and Alexei puts his arm above his eyes, ever the dramatic boy. “Library hours are exhausting.”

“Tell me about it,” she replies with a roll of her eyes.

She doesn’t necessary miss university, but after a day as full as hers, the idea of just sitting in a lecture hall and take notes, all the while chatting with her friends… well, it makes her nostalgic, just a little. She doesn’t miss exams, though. Not that Alexei has a lot of those anymore, spending his days between the library and seminars with clueless undergrads.

She sighs a little, before grabbing the cookie box and throwing it to Alexei. It lands on his chest and he huffs, then shoves two of them in his mouth. Gross. Anya makes a face, even more so when he grins at her, before she frowns.

“Did you get into a fight?” she asks.

The bruise is barely there, and she would probably have missed it were it not for the way Alexei stretched his neck to look at her above the armrest. He rolls his eyes, then smirks. “If you can call it a fight.”

It takes Anya two seconds to understand. Then to glower at him. “Are you purposefully not taking your meds to show off hickeys?”

Alexei doesn’t even look sorry, which is what makes her mad. He simply shrugs, like it’s not important, not dangerous. “I’m fine, okay? Find some chill.”

“Find some --  _ Alexei! _ What if something happened?”

“Stop being such an Olga about it!” 

He sits up, to give a little more power to his glare, but it doesn’t have much of an effect of Anya. Not when she remembers him being thirteen and stupid, showing off in front of his friends by jumping into the ocean from a cliff. His leg had hit a rock at the bottom of the sea, and what would have been a nasty bruise for any teenager turned out to be two weeks at the hospital for him. She still remembers him, pale and sweating and whimpering, before the meds kicked him and knocked him out. She still remember how purple and ugly the bruise on his leg looked. She still remembers it all too well.

“Stop being so reckless with your meds!”

“I’m fine, okay!” And then, because he’s Alexei, his mood switches in about half a second and he smirks at her. “And speaking of hickeys…”

Anya’s hand goes straight to her neck, a blush burning on her cheeks. She put some concealer on this morning, if only to look nice and proper at work, but Alexei never misses anything. Not even the hickeys Dmitry branded into her skin despite her breathless, laughing protests.

Alexei sits cross-legged on the couch and shoves another cookie in his mouth, still smirking, raising his eyebrows at her. Sometimes, Anya wonders why exactly she considers him her best friend, because he’s nothing but insufferable at best. He can play the annoying little brother part too perfectly for his own good, truth be told.

“That’s none of your business,” she says in her ‘drop it now’ voice.

Not that Alexei cares much about that, mind you. “Maria says you two are a thing now? Like, proper couple, not just the bet thing.”

Any can’t help it; she glances at her phone. She refuses to be that clingy girl who’s upset about a boy not texting her back, even more so when there is a logical explanation to it. She’s not stupid, she can draw her own conclusions as to why Dmitry suddenly stopped texting her after nine in the morning. She won’t make it weird. It’s not because she decided to flirt with Russian memes. It’s just, he’s busy. She’s busy. They’re busy. It’s fine, really, she won’t make a mountain out of a molehill.

“Don’t change the subject,” she snaps at Alexei. “Take your meds or I’m telling Olga.”

Alexei crosses his arms on his chest, chin tilted up, like the little brat he is. “You’re not the boss of me.”

“Take your meds or I’m telling Nana.”

He doesn’t move, at first, but hesitation flashes through his eyes. Anya doesn’t look away from him, defiant, waiting a few more seconds before she stretches her hand as if to grab her phone. She doesn’t need to go that far, though, because Alexei reaches for his own phone first.

He goes through it for a few seconds, before putting it to his ear. Anya listens intently as he makes an appointment with the nurse for his injection in two hours’ time. Good boy. It doesn’t really make his glare go away, not that Anya expected it too. He can be mad all he wants, but at least he will be safe. That’s all she wants for him.

Anya relaxes back in her chair and takes a sip of her tea. With a smile of her own, she says, “I only have twenty minutes left before my meeting, so choose quickly. You can sulk or I can tell you about my date last night.”

She glances at her phone to play it cool -- no text from Dmitry -- while Alexei’s frown turns into a grin. Too easy.

 

…

 

Dmitry can follow the rules, but he knows how to find a damn loophole when he needs one. He’s going his brains about him, after all, and so he dutifully waits until midnight. Day three, right? No more of that silence treatment bullshit.


	6. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Life has been a bit chaotic lately but here I am!
> 
> Anya's friends in this chapter are Pierre Hilliard and Sydney Gibbes who, if you didn't already know, where the Romanov children's French and English tutors respectively. They stayed with the family until (almost) the very end.

Thursday nights are sacred for Anya and her friends. The only thing they have left from university, going to a dodgy bar with the knowledge that they don’t have lectures in the morning and can kick off the weekend with shots and cheap beers. They are not as wild as they used to be, mainly because everyone has to be at work on Friday morning now, but the tradition remains. 

Pierre is at their usual table when Anya arrives, kissing her on both cheeks in greeting. He already is nursing a beer so Anya goes to order one of her own before she sits too. Sydney is next to arrive, soon throwing himself in a debate-slash-argument with Pierre, weird mix of loud Swiss and English accents. It takes about half an hour before almost everyone shows up, and with them Dmitry. 

A hand on her lower back and lips to her cheek, he appears by her side. Anya’s mouth curls into a smile at the sight of him, even more so at the glorious image that Dmitry offers wearing a leather jacket, helmet in hand. She didn’t know he had a bike, but she can’t say she minds. As if he wasn’t attractive enough already. 

“Hey, Nastya,” he whispers to her ear. His grin might be for her, or for the way she shivers at the use of the nickname. She just doesn’t know. 

“Hey, you,” she replies as softly, before she turns back to her friends. They’re all staring, apparently not even remotely interested in pretending not to be creeps about this, and she rolls her eyes at them. “Everyone, this is Dmitry. Dmitry, everyone.”

He grins and waves at everyone, before he grabs a free chair from another table and squeezes himself between Anya and Pierre. The Swiss man holds a hand for Dmitry to shake, just in time for Anya to remember her manners.

“This is Pierre. He’s a literature teacher at La Sorbonne and is literally more clever than everyone else around this table.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sydney chimes in from the other side of the room, before he goes back to his conversation with Maria. Anya shakes her head. 

“And this is Dmitry.” Then, with a shit-eating grin, “He works for Buzzclick.”

Dmitry half-heartedly glares at her and Pierre laughs, before they shake hands and share pleasantries. It takes about five minutes before they are talking about the latest Prix Goncourt book, talking animatedly. Dmitry’s hand stays in Anya’s under the table, a detail her sister doesn’t miss if the way Maria raises an eyebrow at her from across the room is anything to go by. Anya simple smiles at her in reply. 

Everything about tonight feels so normal, so domestic, that Anya can barely remember why she was against dating before. She thinks about all those headlines in female magazines and blogs, about finding The One, and almost scoffs. But she has to admit that it’s all about finding someone worth the effort, isn’t it? She never saw the point of going out of her way before, but Dmitry… Dmitry might be worth the effort, perhaps. 

He taps her knee lightly to get her attention, then points at her empty drink. “Want a refill?”

She smiles at him. “Yeah, please.”

“Right away.” 

He grabs both his and her empty glasses before he stands up, not without dropping a kiss to her temple first. He’s barely out of his chair that Maria is there to steal his spot, but Anya’s eyes linger on him as he makes his way to the bar. Her sister snaps her fingers in front of Anya’s face to get her attention.

“What the fuck, Nastya?” Maria means to whisper it, but she’s never been one for quietness, and it comes out louder than expected. Loud enough to make Pierre laugh, and Maria points at him with her thumb. “Nobody can keep up with this one when he talks literature. Your guy is not human.”

“I resent that,” Pierre comments idly. Then, turning his gaze toward Anya, “It’s nice to find someone who can keep up with me. Doesn’t happen that often.”

“Exactly!” Maria goes on. “Nobody should be able to keep up with Pi—wait, what the fuck?”

Anya and Pierre both follow Maria’s line of sight toward the bar, and Anya’s heart drops in her stomach. Dmitry is leaning against the counter, deep in conversation with a pretty blonde. Her hand is on his arm and he is smiling, and a cold shiver creeps up Anya’s spine. 

“I’m going to…” Maria starts, danger in her voice. Any other moment, Anya would marvel at how quickly she can switch from perky and funny to overprotective sister, just in the blink of an eye. But right now, she’s too busy staring at the dimple in Dmitry’s cheek to think about anything else. 

“It’s fine,” she cuts off her sister. “It must be…”

The words die on her tongue when the bartender slides two beers toward Dmitry, and he offers the girl one with a flirty grin. She laughs and blushes prettily. 

“It must be…” Anya tried again, uselessly. There is no denying what is unfolding in front of her eyes. 

But where Anya can only stare, Maria has other ideas in mind. “I’m going to kill him!” she exclaims as she stands out, ready to put her money where her mouth is.

It’s only Anya’s hand on her forearm that stops her from storming toward Dmitry and decking him in front of everyone. “I’ll take care of it,” she says softly. 

Maria sits back down, the anger in her eyes softening as worry settled on her features. “Nastya, if it’s because of the bet… Fuck the bet. You don’t have to go through it with this asshole.”

“It’s not because of the bet.” And perhaps that is even worse. That she is hoping to find a proper explanation for his behaviour. That it has nothing to do with the bet and everything to do with the squeezing feeling in her chest, like someone grabbed her heart and won’t let go. 

“Nastya…”

“I’m fine. I don’t need you to go all Olga in me.”

Still, her legs feel like jelly when she stands up, and Maria’s careful gaze follows her as she makes her way toward the bar. Toward him. 

 

…

 

If you told Dmitry you’d give him a million euros for telling you the girl’s name, he probably wouldn’t be able to do it. Something typically French. Sophie? Sylvie? Stéphanie? Something along those lines. 

She’s not even his style. Pretty, yes. But you can see her hair alone took half an hour to put into braids and buns, and she wears those long, fake nails, and her face is perfectly contoured. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Dmitry just likes his women to be lower maintenance than that. 

(He doesn’t picture a petite woman sitting cross-legged against his chest and swearing like a Russian sailor while playing video games. As attractive as it is, it’s also a reminder of what an asshole he’s being, right now.)

Sophie or whatever laughs at his corny joke, and accepts the drink he offers. Any other night, he would take her home with him. And perhaps he will. Nothing like a pretty blonde to rebound after betraying the women of your dreams in front of all her friends, right?

Fuck but he hates his job.

He’s thinking of another cliché pickup line to serve her, when another, smaller body comes to stand between them. Dmitry holds back the sigh of relief, because he knows he’s in trouble. 

“Hi,” Anya smiles, but it’s cold and dangerous. “What are you doing?”

Dmitry really wants to brace himself for what comes next, but he doesn’t get the chance. Instead, he jumps straight into the script he prepared in advance. “Talking with a beautiful woman. What, that’s illegal now?”

Anya recoils from his words, as if slapped. She can’t even hide the hurt in her eyes, and Dmitry decides that his last ounce of decency just jumped out the window.

Sophie or whatever intervenes before Anya can even answer. “Sorry. He didn’t tell me he’s not single.”

“I am,” he replies like a douche, at the same time Anya says, “He’s not.” She glares at him through misty eyes, before glancing back at the other girl, who looks like she would rather be anywhere else on the planet. Not that he blames her. “It’s fine. It’s not your fault he’s a major dickhead.”

Anya glares back at him, and the other girl takes her cue to run away. Smart move. He would do the same, only he’s stuck here. And he needs to make it worse, so Anya will break up with him and not subject herself to whatever other bullshit he will ultimately throw her way. Really, he’s doing all of that to protect her. 

If only you could sound convincing. 

He leans against the counter, a perfect picture of nonchalance. All he needs is to convince her he’s the biggest douche on earth. Shouldn’t be that hard. 

“What are you doing?” she hisses, unable to keep the anger and hurt from her voice. 

Dmitry forced himself not to react, and to shrug instead. “It’s a bar. I’m socialising.”

“Socialising,” she echoes. “With a bimbo blonde, while your girlfriend is waiting for you?”

He raises his hands in front of him. “Wow, wow, wow. Slow down. Nobody ever said anything about going steady.”

She takes a deep breath, and for a hot second there Dmitry is pretty sure she’s going to sock him in the jaw. And it would be well deserved. But instead, she runs a hand in her hair and looks away. “Not here,” she says, and leaves. 

Dmitry is all too aware of her friends’ eyes on them when he follows her outside the bar. The cold air does very little to calm his nerves, even as he follows her down the street and away from the people smoking in front of the bar. She finds a relatively quiet corner, before she turns to face him once more. 

Her eyes are definitely wet now, despite the stubborn set of her jaw and the anger pouring out of her, and Dmitry definitely feels like the biggest jerk on earth. He was never supposed to break her heart, but look at her. What the fuck. 

“What are you doing?” she asks again. “Is this a joke?”

“We never said we were a couple,” he replies, but it sounds less douchy and more like he’s making excuses for himself. Which might be even more terrible, come to think about it.

“It was kinda implied when I invited you to meet  _ my sister and my friends over drinks. _ Do you think I do that with any guy that fucks me?”

He’s the one who looks like he was slapped now. All he wants is to scream at her to go, just go, I’m obviously not worth it. All he wants to do is take her in his arms and apologise. “Anya…”

“It’s fine. It was a misunderstanding. It happens.”

Dmitry isn’t sure who she’s trying to convince, him or herself. But he also realised that she’s giving him an in; pretend like it was a mistake and move from there; pretend like nothing happened. Damn her and her goodness. 

“Anya…”

“It was a misunderstanding,” she says once more, a little more fiercely this time. She takes a step closer and grabs the lapels of his leather jacket, pulling him toward her. Fuck, but she’s sexy when she’s mad. “But do this shit again and I will personally rip your balls and make you eat them, understood?”

“Jesus,” is all he can reply.

“Understood?”

He nods. Just once, a jerk of his chin before he grabs her by the neck and pulls her to him in a messy kiss. She answers with a groan, rising on her tiptoes to meet him halfway and deepen the kiss. She’s everywhere, her hands in her hair, her chest against his and, when he shoves her against the closest wall, her leg around his hip. Someone wolf-whistle behind them. Dmitry flips them the bird before grabbing Anya’s thigh and pulling it higher up until she gasps into his mouth.

When they break away, gulping air, her lips are swollen and her cheeks red, the anger turned into lust in her eyes. It takes all of Dmitry’s will not to simply find a dark alley and drop to his knees in front of her. Instead, he grabs her chin, and presses another kiss on her lips.

“Let’s go back to my place.”

She still panting, but she smiles. “My handbag and your helmet are still inside.”

He looks toward the bar, and groans. His voice breaks a little when he replies, “Your sister is going to kill me if I go back in.”

Anya only laughs, but Dmitry clearly notices that she doesn’t contradict him. Should he worry about that? Angry, vengeful siblings coming back for him when he expects it less? There are worse ways to die, he guesses, even if he can’t really think of any right now.

“I’ll be right back,” she breathes before pushing him away.

She jogs back toward the bar, offering him quite the view before she disappears inside. Long enough for Dmitry to lean against the wall and sigh, conjuring one disturbing thought after another to stop his blood from boiling furthermore and to calm whatever is happening between his legs. Can’t really ride a bike like this, especially not with Anya behind him.

The mere thought of her arms around his chest as they ride through Paris is almost enough to make him hard again. A cold shower would be such a wonderful idea, right about now. Not that he can, or will, because Anya is back already, bag on her shoulder and helmet in her hands.

Thankfully, he has a second helmet in the seat storage of his bike, and so he trades it for Anya’s bag and helps her put it on her head. It’s one of those ridiculously big and ugly ones that he got for cheap, just in case, and it indeed looks ridiculously big on her head. In a cute way. A ridiculous, but cute way.

“Sexy,” he comments with a smirk.

She slaps his chest. “Liar.”

He has to tilt his head to a very weird angle so he can kiss her, and he lingers for a little longer than necessary, just because he can. “Tell you what. Tomorrow, fancy restaurant, just you and me. Official date for an official couple.”

He’s still close enough that she can kiss him, an almost chaste brush of her lips against his, before she replies. “I would love that.”

Dmitry has no idea that his colleagues will find a way to ruin it for him, but. For now he’s going home with a pretty lady and he’s got a date, and he will enjoy it while he can.


	7. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys! I just came back from a week in NYC where I got to see Anastasia twice (including once sitting in a box, which was a childhood dream, and we were so close to the stage I could almost touch Derek's dimples!), and to meet all the cast, and to spend 10 minutes chilling with Christy after the show. She's the sweetest ever, and gives amazing hugs, and I'm still on a little cloud about it!
> 
> So, so much inspiration for more fics! I'm working on a massive canon-divergent one-shot and I'm thinking of a "missing scenes" series of one-shots. So exciting!
> 
> (This particular chapter contains one massive French reference, so deal with it. Anya and Alexei very much are French in there after all, and I couldn't not write some bits of French pop culture into the fic!)

“You’re wearing  _ that _ ?”

Anya looks up from buckling her belt, then down to her outfit again. “What’s wrong with it?”

“You look like  _ Mama _ .” Alexei almost spits the name. Of all of them, he’s the only one who doesn’t remember their parents, too young for memories to stick. The only one who knows them for their crimes, and nothing else. Anya can’t really blame him for his extreme point of view, even if it hurts. She wishes he remembered their father’s patience and gentleness, their mother’s love. “You don’t want to look like Mama on your date.”

Anya turns to look at herself in the mirror. She thought the skirt and blazer, all in white, combo was a sensible choice but, now that Alexei has put the idea in her head, she can only picture their conservative, religious mother wearing the same clothes. Not exactly date-friendly indeed. 

She sighs, and falls back in her bed. “I don’t know what to wear,” she whines. 

Alexei rolls his eyes. “You’re a disaster. No wonder you’ve been single for so long.”

“Hey,” she tries to complain, but it’s weak even to her own ears. 

Not that Alexei cares all that much, busy rummaging through her wardrobe. It’s like he suddenly turned into a cartoon character, throwing shirts and dresses above his shoulders when they’re not to his liking, until the floor is just a sea of pastel fabrics. It will take forever to put everything back the right way, thank you very much. 

He finally settles on a pink summer dress that, once upon a time, belonged to Tatiana. The neckline is quite low, which is why Anya never really wears it, but it does make quite a nice date outfit. She only needs heels and a small bag, and she will be ready to move on to her hair. 

“Ma-gni-fique, ma chérie!” Alexei exclaims in a terrible, over-the-top Brazilian accent as he holds the dress in front of her body. 

Anya can only laugh at the reference before she takes the dress from him and pushes him away from her bedroom. She even ignores his comments about not using pink eyeshadow, it only makes her look more pale, as she closes the door on him. What is he, an expert now?

Still, she hurries to put the dress on and to gather her hair into a simple chignon, before she applies her makeup. Nothing too flashy – she’s never been about painting her face anyway, unlike Maria – but just enough to show she’s made the effort. 

She’s putting the last touch when the bell rings at the front door, and so she grabs her bag, phone and keys before leaving the room. Dmitry is standing in their living room, chatting with Alexei about video games like they’ve know each other all their lives instead of having just met. It does something funny in Anya’s stomach, but she doesn’t dwell on it too much. 

Nor does she dwell on the wonders of rolled up sleeves on Dmitry’s forearms, because. Well. 

He turns toward her and offers a smile that almost, but not quite, matches Alexei’s shit-eating grin. Anya will have to remember to slap her brother later. Later, when she isn’t too busy melting about Dmitry’s lips to her temple or his arm around her waist. 

“You look lovely,” he whispers, low enough to only be heard by her. Then, looking back at Alexei, “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too, dude,” Alexei replies with a shake of his hand. “Guess I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

Dmitry throws her a confused look, and Anya sighs. “I’ll tell you later,” she simply offers as she directs him toward the door.

Alexei cackles, like an asshole. By the time Anya closes the door behind her, he’s already back to his video game. Thankfully, Dmitry didn’t take his bike this time – wouldn’t have worked with her dress – but a Uber is waiting for them instead. It means more traffic, but also more time for chitchat. Anya is fine with that. 

The restaurant, it turns out, is a little crêperie in the middle of Sacré-Coeur, with candles on every table and art on all the walls. Adorable. She grins at Dmitry, even more so when he pulls her chair for her to sit. 

“What a gentleman,” she mocks playfully. 

Dmitry rolls his eyes. “I try.”

There is an edge to his voice, but Anya doesn’t think much of it. That is, until their waiter arrive at their table and hands them the menus. Dmitry opens his, barely glances at it, before he hands it back to the man.

“I will take the crêpe campagnarde, and she will have the crêpe norvégienne, with two bowls of dry cider, please.”

Anya’s mouth opens wordlessly, in such a way that the waiter looks confusingly between the two of them. The awkwardness lingers for a second longer, before Dmitry makes a small motion with his hand to bring the waiter’s attention back to the menu. The poor man takes it from him, then takes Anya’s, before running to the kitchen. He knows not to get in the crossfire when he sees one, or so it seems.

“Excuse me, what?” she deadpans.

Dmitry blinks at her. “A problem, darling?”

“Yes.” She takes a breath, willing herself to calm down. With little success. “I can order for myself. I wanted white wine.”

“Cider goes better with crêpes, everyone knows that.”

“I still wanted white wine.”

He smiles at her, but the curve of his lips seems a little too deprecating to Anya’s taste. “Come on, don’t be like that…” he tells her, the tone of his voice begging for a fight.

Anya’s nails draw half-moons into the palms of her hands under the table as she wills herself not to make a scene. As much as she wants to snap back, they are still very much in public, and she knows better than to make a show of herself. A few years back, perhaps she would have, but she has matured by now. She knows better.

Sadly for her, it seems that it was only just the beginning. Dmitry starts talking about this or that thing, never giving her the chance to reply. Or, well, when he does and she is able to make a comment, he immediately contradicts her, or corrects her, or adds more. The feeling that she is been mainsplained on every single word she says gets stronger and stronger as time goes by.

She’s fed up with it by the time they get their crêpes, and completely done five minutes later when her plate is empty. She’s looking at the time on her phone every thirty seconds or so, hoping for an emergency text from Alexei or Maria. Anything that would give her a reason to run away from this shitshow.

Worst part, maybe, is that Dmitry doesn’t even notice her uneasiness. Or doesn’t care. Where did the man who charmed her go, and who’s that asshole now replacing him? Maybe the nice guy was the lie all along, and this is the real Dmitry -- the guy who doesn’t have a problem flirting with other girls in front of her, who is shitty at dates and who doesn’t give a fuck about what she has to say.

Maybe this is the second shoe, after all.

Anya wants to laugh bitterly. She should have known better. This is exactly why she enjoyed being single. Nobody to disappoint you, to betray you, to let you down. Nobody to break your heart, when it’s staying in your own chest instead of being willingly given. How stupid she feels, all of a sudden! As if Dmitry could have been different, even with his dazzling grins and his breathtaking kisses. As if any guy could be different.

“Are you done?” she snaps at last.

A little louder than she should have, if the few heads turning their way are anything to go by. Some look away, but others keep looking, as if waiting for some entertainment. Dmitry only blinks at her, confused. Asshole.

“What do you mean?”

“Do you like the sound of your voice so much that you can’t even shut up for five seconds? Because, seriously, it’s getting old already.”

“Anya, what…”

“Or maybe it’s the fact that you’ve been acting like a  _ complete dickhead _ to me all night long? I just don’t know!”

She throws her phone in her bag before she stands up, snatching her jacket from the back of her chair as she goes. Dmitry half-stands up too, unsure of what to do next. She refuses to put too much thought into the feelings flashing through his eyes because -- well, because she doesn’t give a fuck. Or doesn’t want to, at least.

“Anya, come on…”

“No!” she yells, before keeping herself in check. She sighs, and squares her shoulders. “I’ve had it, Dmitry! I have no idea who this,” she gestures to all of him, “is, but this isn’t the guy I met, and I hate you. I wish I’d never met you. So leave me alone, okay!”

She all but runs away from him and out of the restaurant, one woman gasping at the way she storms off. The chill night wind bites at her cheeks when she opens the door, but she doesn’t let it stop her. There is a subway station not too far from here, and that will have to do. 

Her heels clack on the sidewalk as she rummages through her bag, looking for her subway card -- it must be here somewhere, it has to be -- when someone grabs her wrist. She yelps, and raises one fist as she turns round.

Dmitry jumps back with a scream of his own. “Jesus, woman!”

“What about ‘leave me alone’ don’t you get?”

“Let me explain!”

“No! You’ve done enough talking for a century!”

He grabs her wrist again, and her other arm. His eyes are pleading, but she still tries to escape him. Maybe she should just knee him in the dick, would make all of this way faster, would make him stop once and for all.

He lets go, just for a moment, just long enough to cup her face instead. Anya’s half-hearted attempts at pushing him away last only a few more seconds before she gives up. She hates his eyes; they say too much, and not nearly enough.

“Let me go.”

“Not before you give me a chance to explain.”

“Explain what exactly? That you’re just like any other douchebag in this city? That you somewhat tricked me into believing you were one of the good ones, and I actually fell for it? Ah ah, congrats! Fucking fool me, you did!”

“Anya… Anya, no.” It’s so soft, and so broken, Anya can only sigh at the sound of it. “I’m… I swear, I’m still the same guy you met in that bar,  _ I swear _ .” He takes a step forward, invading her personal space. Anya can do nothing more than stare in his big, pleading eyes. “I know I’ve been acting like a dick and… And I’m so,  _ so sorry _ for that. And I swear I will explain everything next week but. I need you to trust me. Just a few more days, and it will all make sense.”

Maybe it’s the desperation in his voice. Maybe it’s her own desperation, and how he already owns her heart, despite everything. Maybe it’s this, and so much more, that have Anya taking a step forward of her own. “Tell me now.”

He closes his eyes, as if the thought alone pains him, before he presses his forehead against her. “I can’t. It’s killing me but I can’t, it’s too… You need to trust me. It will all make sense soon enough.”

“I can’t trust you if you keep hurting me.” The confession comes out of nowhere, tumbling out of her mouth before she can swallow the words back. She closes her eyes, wills the tears away. Why did she have to fall so fast for such a terrible man?

“You have no idea how much I hate myself for it,” he replies, and she almost believes him. She wants to, at least. “Let me prove it to you. One weekend. Just one weekend and then you make your choice Sunday night. If I’m worth it or not.”

Anya sucks in a breath, but steps away with a shake of her head. “I can’t…” she starts, and his face falls. “I’m going to my sister’s for the weekend. It’s my nephew’s birthday. I can’t stay in Paris with you.”

Dmitry looks away and licks his lips. She can almost see the wheels turning in his head, and guesses what he is going to say before he even does, this stupid, stupid man. “Maybe I could go with you?”

“To Olga’s? For the kid’s birthday? All my family is going to be there,” she warns him.

Fear flashes through his eyes, and Anya fights back a smirk. Maria would love to know she inspires that kind of reaction in a man’s heart. Or perhaps it’s just the idea of meeting the family after, what, three days of dating? Would frighten any man, really.

“Does your nephew like cars or superheros?” he asks.

Anya finally smiles, and shakes her head.

Stupid, stupid man.


	8. Saturday (1)

Nervous, Dmitry? Never!

That is definitely not nerves twisting his stomach as he makes his way around Paris. His bike allows him not to be stuck in traffic for too long, but he feels like throwing up in his helmet every time he thinks about the events of the day for more than a second. Mainly, yes, how he’s going to meet Anya’s family today, and how he thought it was a fabulous idea last night. It was probably the wine talking, or the desperation not to lose her to his bullshit.

At least he doesn’t have to do any of this during the weekend. The email awaiting him in his inbox this morning was but a few lines long, straight to the point: his colleague got dumped last night (surprising) and the assignment is on pause until he can find another victim. Which, as awful as it sounds, is quite the relief for Dmitry. He doesn’t have to act like an arsehole in front of her entire family and can actually enjoy a weekend by Anya’s side, without anything getting in the way.

Anything but the fact that he’s meeting her family, and they might all know how much of a douche he’s been since they met. Dmitry is an only child, but he can only imagine what the combined wrath of three different sisters looks like and, well, it’s not pretty. He’s actually scared for his life, to be honest.

His worries fly away when he finds Anya on the side of the road, already waiting for him. She has a bag at her feet and her sunglasses on her nose, and she grins when he parks next to her. Dmitry is weak; he grins back.

“That’s not a lot,” he comments with a nod toward the very small bag she’s packed. 

“How high maintenance do you think I am?” she shots back. A beat. “I have some clothes at my sister’s, okay.”

He grins again, before he pops open the trunk of his bike. His own overnight bag is small too – it’s only two days, he just needs a change of clothes and his toothbrush – so they don’t have to fight for space in the trunk. He hands her the second helmet then, and types the address on his GPS. 

“I could give you directions, you know.”

“Not really doable on a bike,” he replies as he checks that her helmet is secured on her head. “You’d lose your voice before we even make it to the Périph.” 

She pouts but doesn’t disagree, so Dmitry hops on the bike and lets her sit behind him. His breath hitches in his throat when she wraps her arms around his chest, so close to him despite his heavy leather jacket. 

The journey takes a good hour and a half, taking them outside of Paris and into the countryside. Dmitry has to admit he’s not used to that kind of environment – from Petersburg to Lyon to Paris, he’s only ever known the buzzing life and noise of big cities, the restlessness and the bright lights. He might actually see the stars tonight; he can’t remember when it last happened. 

One country road after another until they enter a small village in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t quite look like the postcards of quirky little villages you see in souvenirs shops, but it has enough of a charm for Dmitry to understand why anyone would like to move away from the city for this. It’s not his style, but he understands, especially with how pretty Olga’s cottage looks, with its garden running all around the house. There even is a house in a tree and a set of swings for the children; a dream come true if there ever was any.

Anya excitedly gets rid of her helmet, and Dmitry does so too before he trades it for both their bags. He follows her to the front door; she doesn’t knock, simply enters like she owns the place. A child yells her name from across the living room, throwing himself at her into a hug, and she laughs as she squeezes him tightly.

“Auntie Nastya! Auntie Nastya! It’s my birthday today!”

“I knooow,” she cooes happily. “You’re such a big boy now!”

The boy must not be older than six, not that Dmitry knows anything about those things, one front teeth missing and unruly hair falling in front of his blue eyes. He looks up at Dmitry curiously, before tapping Anya’s arm softly. “Is that your boyfriend?” he asks in a stage whisper.

Anya only laughs. “Yeah. That’s Dmitry. He likes video games too.”

The boys grins happily, to which Dmitry only replies by an awkward wave of his hand. He’s saved from any other interaction with the child by a woman coming to greet them. Her hair is slightly darker than Anya’s but, with her features and the striking blue eyes they all seem to be sharing, there is no denying the fact that they are sisters.

“Nico, your manners! You could at least let them enter the house!” The boy offers his mother an innocent grin, before he runs away. She rolls her eyes even as she hugs Anya, then turns to Dmitry with a smile. “So this is the boyfriend,” she comments in a teasing voice.

Anya groans loudly. “Don’t even…”

“Oh I can and I will, Malenkaya!” She grins even more as she focuses back on Dmitry. “I’m Olga, nice to meet you. Want anything to drink?”

He shakes her hand, thrown off for a second or two. “Dmitry. A beer would be fine.”

“Straight away. Please, make yourself at home. God knows Nastya does.”

Anya groans one more time, even louder than before, and that finally gets a snort from Dmitry. He is not familiar with that kind of sibling banter himself but, from what he’s seen of Alexei too, it seems to be common practice for the Romanovs. This new aspect of Anya’s life fascinates him more than he cares to admit. She seems at ease in this house, closing the door behind her and throwing their bags in a corner before she leads him to the living room.

Everything is high windows and natural lights, with a big toy chest in a corner and family pictures everywhere. Even though Anya told him they grew up in their Nana’s hôtel particulier in Paris, Dmitry has a feeling that this, right there, is the family’s headquarters now.

“Bitter or lager, your beer, Dmitry?” Olga asks from the kitchen.

“Lager, please,” he answers dutifully.

It takes him a few seconds to notice Anya is silent and, when he turns around to check on her, it’s to find her staring at a massive backpack in a corner of the room. The kind that speaks of months trekking through the wilderness. “Olga?” she asks, her voice tense. “Is Tanya in town?”

Olga pops her head through the open door leading to the kitchen, a mischievous smile on her lips. “She came back last night. She’s at the corner shop buying…”

Whatever she’s buying, one may never know, for Anya’s scream of happiness is louder than anything else. She doesn’t need more to run out of the house, slamming the door behind her. Dmitry blinks at the space where she was standing a few seconds ago, lost and confused.

When Olga comes to his side, she’s holding out a beer for him. “Tatiana works for Doctors Without Borders,” she explains. “She hasn’t been home since Christmas.”

“Must be tough,” he comments, before taking a sip of his beer.

“It is. We were both part of it, but it got too much for me. I met my husband in Cambodia so it’s not all bad, but… We wanted to build a family, so we came back. Tanya, she likes the job more than I ever did. She likes to feel like she does something that really matters, you know?”

“Sounds familiar,” he answers with a smile.

Olga laughs. “Yeah. My little sisters sure want to save the world. Now, come, I need help preparing everything for the aperitif.”

Which is how Dmitry finds himself in the kitchen, cutting cheese into small cubes and chatting with Olga. The same topics that always come back between two Russian expats -- where they are from and the current political climate and don’t you just really miss vatrushkas? Considering everything, Olga is quite nice to him. Dmitry wonders if it’s hiding something, or Anya simply didn’t tell them what happened. Which would be weird, since they all seem to be so close, and surely Maria would have, if not Anya? It leaves Dmitry is a perpetual state of confusion.

The front door opens again, this time follows by the excited chatter and loud laughs between two women. They barge in the kitchen, the oldest and tallest of the two proudly slamming a brick of milk on the counter. Once again, it is obvious she comes from the same Romanov mold, even with her auburn hair and her eyes a slightly darker shade of blue. When they land on Dmitry, they are hard and unforgiving, and he immediately changes his mind about not being in trouble. 

“The boyfriend,” Tatiana comments. Then, glancing at Anya, “I thought he would be taller.”

“Everyone is tall according to Nastya,” Olga jokes.

Anya throws her arms up in the air. “Is it going to be like this all weekend long?”

Both her older sisters over her twin grins, before Olga wraps an arm around her shoulders to hold her close. “That’s what happens when you bring a boy home. We make sure it’s as embarrassing as possible for you.”

“Wait until we show him the family albums too,” Tatiana adds.

“I hate you both. So much.”

Olga kisses her cheek soundly. “No you don’t, but thanks for trying.”

Dmitry looks between the three of them, confused and overwhelmed. He was nowhere near prepared for the hurricane that is more than two Romanovs together, that is for sure, no matter how adorable Anya is as the bratty little sister.

Thankfully for him, Olga’s mother senses must be tickling, because she notices his awkwardness straight away, and redirect everyone to the patio. Dmitry grabs his beer and the bowl of cheese cubes he just cut, before he follows them outside for drinks. It takes him a good fifteen minutes before he finally finds it in himself to relax and take part in the conversation. He learns that Olga’s oldest child is at a slumber party until tomorrow, and her husband working the Saturday shift at the hospital, which only leaves Nico running around and stealing snacks from his aunts.

The kid already is on a sugar rush, and his birthday party only starts in the afternoon, which leaves little to the imagination as to the kind of mess this is going to be. Especially because the party is at some kind of tree-climbing adventure course, something that doesn’t sound particularly safe to Dmitry but. Olga’s the mom. She knows better.

“So we have the house all to ourselves?” Anya asks, lying back in her garden chair and wiggling her eyebrows.

“First, gross,” Olga comments with a laugh. “But yeah, pretty much.”

“I’m meeting with Maria in town,” Tatiana adds. “We’ll only be back for lunch tomorrow.”

Anya blinks at her sister, barely able to hide her surprise. “Maria convinced you to go clubbing?”

Tatiana shrugs, before she takes another sip of her rosé. “Don’t act so surprised. I’m fun.”

“Your kind of fun involves books and traveling to the other side of the world,” Olga points out.

“Sounds like tons of fun to me,” Dmitry chimes in.

The look Tatiana offers him in unreadable, before she smiles. “See? Even BuzzClick here knows what’s right.”

He tips his beer to her, and winks at Anya when she laughs. Dmitry doesn’t even register people making fun of his job anymore -- it’s not like they’re wrong after all, and not like he’s going to do it for much longer anyway. It would be a waste of time to take offense, at this point.

Once their drinks are finished, Olga goes back to the kitchen to cook lunch -- steaks and a salad, nothing fancy, she says -- and she shows Dmitry to the bathroom. He stares at himself in the mirror for long seconds while he washes his hand, taking a deep breath before he runs his wet fingers through his hair to comb it back a little. It makes even more of a mess than anything else, but oh well.

He almost has a heart attack when Tatiana corners him against the wall as he gets out.

“We need to talk,” she tells him, voice and eyes hard. He has to admit, he’d almost believed he was safe, now, and he was terribly wrong. “My siblings are the kindest souls on the planet, and they take it from our father. But I am my mother’s daughter, you see.”

Dmitry swallows hard, and nods. She scares him into silence, leaning against the wall and listening intently to every word out of her mouth. He has the feeling than trying to make a case for himself would only upset her even more, so he lets her do her thing.

“My family has been through some deep shit, and Nastya? She may pretend she’s happy and carefree all the time, but she’s not. We’ve all been suffering. And I won’t let some loser journalist take advantage of my little sister just because she’s kind and smiling and beautiful.” She takes a step close, her fingers poking into his chest, and Dmitry cowers against the wall a little bit more. “So let me be really clear with you. If I hear that you’ve hurt her again, or you’re playing games, or whatever happened this week, well… Just be aware than I know at least five different techniques to kill someone and make it look like natural causes. Do we understand each other?”

His eyes wide and throat dry, Dmitry can only nod his agreement. 

A sigh of relief escapes him, once Tatiana nods too and goes back to the kitchen. He doesn’t even blame her for it but… “Jesus,” he mutters.


	9. Saturday (2)

Dmitry only visibly relaxes once both Olga and Tatiana have left the house, and Anya feels bad about not realising sooner. It is only when his shoulders sag, a sigh escaping him, that she notices how tense his body was until now. He didn’t say much during lunch, not that she can blame him for it; more than two Romanov siblings together is a lot to handle, they are all well aware of that. But Anya now wonders if there is something else that he is not saying, something that happened when she wasn’t looking.

He’s looking at the family pictures on the wall when she comes behind him, her arms around his chest. She feels more than hear the small laugh rumbling up his body as his fingers intertwine with hers, holding her close. She presses a kiss between his shoulder blades before she lies her cheek against his back, closing her eyes. Everything is quiet but for the old clock ticking in the living room and the beating of his heart against her ear, peaceful and calm. She could get used to this; she understands, now, what Olga found so compelling about moving to the countryside.

“Not that this isn’t nice,” he comments, “But maybe we should find something to do today.”

Anya smiles softly as she detaches herself from him. Immediately, Dmitry turns around to face her and wrap his arms around her body. He’s warm and firm against her and, were it not for the fact that they are in her sister’s house, Anya would have the perfect activity in mind to fill their afternoon. Dmitry must read her thoughts, for he overdramatically rolls his eyes before he drops a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Romanov.”

“I didn’t say anything! You’re the pervert!”

She wrinkles her nose at him and it makes him laugh, before he kisses her again. Try as she may, she doesn’t remember him being that carefree in Paris -- the pressure of the big city no longer weights on his shoulders, it seems. She likes him all the more like this, with his sparkling eyes and his terrible jokes.

“Let’s just go on a ride,” she tells him.

Olga doesn’t exactly lives in an exciting area, but Dmitry accepts anyway and, not five minutes later, Anya finds herself hugging him from behind on his bike. They don’t have an exact direction in mind, just turning this or that way when two roads meet. The countryside turns into a small forest at some point, before they go around and back on their tracks. Anya is pretty sure they end up going in circles at some point, but she doesn’t care all that much when the roads are empty and she can hold on to Dmitry as tightly as he will let her.

When they make it back to the village, Dmitry cuts the engine on a small, empty street, and hops off. She frowns at him, even more so when he pushes her forward and climbs behind her instead.

“What are you doing?”

“Teaching you,” he answers, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. He grabs her hands and puts them on the handles, and she finds herself moving a little bit more forward in her seat.

“Yeah,” she says with a giggle. “Always wanted to have something that powerful between my legs.”

When Dmitry laughs, it’s more of a loud bark. Despite his helmet, he manages to kiss her neck, before he fixes her position. She hopes he doesn’t feel the shiver running down her spine through his jacket, but she can’t be sure.

Dmitry shows her the basic ropes of how his bike works, applying soft pressure on her hands as he goes. Anya doesn’t quite manage to remember everything he says, and so the bike jerks forward dangerously the first time she tries to turn on the engine. He laughs in her ear and shows her again, slow and patient in his explanations.

It’s another five minutes before Anya can drive in a straight line and at a smooth speed. She’s going slowly, all things considered, but her laughter is genuine when she manages to go all the way down the street and to turn around the corner. Dmitry laughs with her even as he keeps giving her advices, up until the moment she turns into her sister’s driveway and cuts the engine.

Her entire body is buzzing with excitement even as she hops off the bike and gets rid of her helmet. She turns toward Dmitry, only for her grin to falter a little at the sight of his dishevelled hair when he takes off his own helmet. She’s known from the moment she met him that he was handsome, but nothing quite compares to this moment -- his hair in his eyes and his blue shirt showing his collarbones, and his leather jacket doing wonders to his shoulders. Her mouth goes dry, and something funny happens inside her stomach. She doesn’t have the words to describe it but -- it’s something, definitely.

She walks toward him and grabs his neck, pulling him down so she can kiss him, hard and fast. His eyes are still close when she lets go of him, lashes fluttering against his cheeks and smile digging dimples into his skin.

“What was that for?” he asks, voice low and husky.

“I’m glad you’re here with me, is all.”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders to keep her close, and kisses her forehead before he follows her back inside the house. “I’m glad I’m here too. Even if your sisters are scary.”

She can’t help but laugh.

 

…

 

Dmitry waits until Anya is under the shower to grab his phone and walks out into the garden. The sun is still high in the sky even though the clouds are starting to turn into beautiful shades of pinks and purples, and he gazes up at it as he puts his phone to his ear. Three tones, before she picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, mama,” he says softly, as if afraid speaking too loudly would break this peaceful moment. He goes to sit on a garden chair, eyes still lost in the sky.

“Well, if it isn’t my favourite son,” his mother jokes, and it makes him grin boyishly. “How are you, Dima?”

“I’m fine, mama. Just wanted to check on you.”

She tsks, the sound echoing into his ear and making him grin even more. His mother has always been the only one to always see through his bullshit, even when she’s not even here to actually see him. “If you wanted news, you just would have texted. What’s this really about?”

He shakes his head, and sighs. Even then, even with what he is about to admit, he can’t quite wipe the smile off his face. “I met someone,” is a simple confession, but one that immediately makes his mother gasp, loud and happy. “She’s a Romanov.”

In the tense seconds of silence that follow, he can almost picture the smile faltering on his mother’s beautiful face, replaced by an expression of pain and worry. Confusion too, maybe, not that he would blame her for it. “Dima, the Romanovs…”

“I know what they did, mama. What they did to papa, but. She’s not like that. Her siblings are not like that. Anya, she’s… Different. She’s a good person, mama.”

For a moment, he can hear nothing but her loud breathing into the phone, and he worries that he got her upset about it. His mother is strong, but he’s afraid it’s all too much for her -- the memories and the heartbreak that comes with them, the wound in her soul that will never truly heal. The last thing he wants is to hurt her even more than she already is.

But then she sighs, and he can hear the tentative smile in her next words. “I’ve never heard you talking about a girl like this before.”

A laugh escapes him, small and breathless. “Because there’s no girl like this, mama.”

“Look at you, Dima. All smitten.” When she laughs, it’s like she can’t quite believe her own words. Dmitry doesn’t really blame her -- he doesn’t have a good track record, when it comes to relationships, and never introduced anyone to his mother, scarcely talking about his girlfriends to her. She must think he will ends up alone, like the eternal bachelor he seems to be. A not too inaccurate vision of his future, until a week ago. “Tell me about this girl, baby.”

And so he does. He tells his mother about a girl with fire in her eyes and on her tongue, a girl who isn’t afraid to argue back at him when he’s being an idiot and who knows how to hold her own. He tells her about a girl so beautiful he doesn’t know how not to be an idiot around her, and that makes his mother laugh. He tells her about meeting her, and their first date, and how terrified he was of meeting her family. How nervous he still is, afraid to fuck this up and ruin it for himself, and for her.

When he’s done, his mother remains silent for long seconds, for so long that he glances at his phone’s screen to make sure the call didn’t cut. But then his mother sighs, and it sounds a little star-struck. “You really do love her.”

He startles at her choice of words, almost ready to argue back. But the lie dies like ashes on his tongue when he tries to deny it; he could never hide the truth from his mother, after all. And it is strange, finally putting a word on those feelings that have been bubbling inside of him for a week, the emotions within him every time he thinks about Anya, or look at her. A smile blossoms on his lips, and a small chuckles escapes him as the finality of it all settles deep between his breastbones. “I think I do, mama.”

“I will have to meet this special girl, then,” she declares. “Maybe you could travel to Lyon one weekend? Or I could take a few days, make it to Paris…”

Anya softly appears by his side, and he grins up at her, opens his arm so she will sit in his lap. She does, her skin smelling like delicate flowers, her wet hair tinkling him when she kisses his cheek. “You? Taking a few days off work? The world is about to end,” he jokes.

His mother tsks him and, were she by his side, she’d probably gives him a small tap on the back of his head. God, but he misses her -- hasn’t seen her since Christmas, and misses her dearly. “Watch your sarcasm, young man.”

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he challenges back.

A pause. Then, “I better keep going. My night shifts starts soon.”

His hand settles on Anya’s back, rubbing up and down under the soft fabric of her tank top, as he grins to himself. “All I hear is you deflecting.”

“Goodbye, Dmitry Constantinovich,” his mother replies, almost sternly.

He laughs, small and childish. “You can full-name me all you want, we both know I’m right.”

“Your ungrateful child,” she shoots back. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I’ll call again soon.”

He doesn’t put his phone back in his pocket after he hangs up, instead tapping his nail lightly against the screen. Anya is still snuggling into his side, her arms around his neck, and she makes it easy to kiss her -- all he has to do is turn his head and she’s here, lips pliant against his, the perfume of her shampoo invading his senses. The chair tips dangerously when he leans back, his hand caressing up and down her thigh, and it’s the only reason he stops kissing her. He could stay in this moment forever, just him and her and that beautiful sunset. Peaceful. Quiet. Perfect.

“You’re such a mama’s boy,” she comments with a smile. “I’ve never seen you so soft before.”

“You take that back,” he jokingly threatens, not that it has any effect on Anya. 

She’s right, after all. He can act tough all he wants, the perfect Alpha Male that BuzzClick readers would love to be just for one day, but at the end of the day Dmitry would just melt between his mother’s fingers. He’s always argued that it’s because they’ve been through so much together, but truth is he’s always been his mother’s boy, as far as he can remember. Even when his father was still alive, and Dmitry was looking up to him like he was a god, he was still closer to his mother.

“She wants to meet you,” he comments, and grins when Anya pales a little. “Hey, if I can survive this weekend, you can survive meeting my mother.”

“True,” she admits. She brushes her lips against his once more. “It’s just all very official, you know?”

“I don’t mind if you don’t.”

When she smiles, bright and beautiful, he knows he’s given the perfect answer. It should scare him, maybe -- aren’t men supposed to cower at the idea of commitment? That’s what all his colleagues wanted him to believe, at least. Not for the first time, and definitely not the last, they were wrong. It doesn’t even surprise Dmitry anymore, at this point.


	10. Sunday

When Dmitry wakes up, the sun falls on the wrong side of his face and there is a body flushed against his, one hand thrown over his chest and strands of hair in his mouth. He pokes his tongue out and sputters a little as his brain catches up and reminds him he is not in his Parisian apartment but in Olga’s guest room. Anya snores softly into his neck, dead to the world even as he shifts to find a more comfortable position and manhandles her a bit in the process. She simply mumbles something in Russian against his collarbone before she tightens her hold on him, making Dmitry smile. 

Not for the first time, he thinks that he could get up to this every morning and never tire of it. Of her. How he developed feelings for Anya so fast, he will never know – he’s never been one to fall hard, before, but he also never met someone like her before. His words to his mother still ring true in the early morning sun. He loves her. Perhaps he loves her more than he’s ever loved anyone before, and it scares him in how liberating it feels. How right. 

So he smiles, and nuzzles his nose into her hair. No going back to sleep for him now, but he can still enjoy this moment, blanketed in the warmth of each other, before he has to get out of bed. Soon he will face all five Romanov siblings, and everything it implies, but for now he is content just appreciating the weight of Anya’s body pressed into his side, the smell of her flower shampoo and the soft imprint her fingers leave in his side. For now, he simply appreciates being with her. 

It’s another ten minutes before Anya stirs, lashes fluttering against her cheekbones. She must feel his eyes on her, because she raises a hand to his face, pushing it away with a groan. Dmitry can only laugh, even when indelicately slapped in the cheek, at how grumpy she is first thing in the morning. He probably shouldn’t find it as adorable as he does, but they’ve just started their honeymoon phase; he’s allowed to be sappy and ridiculous about his girlfriend.

“Creep,” she mutters, voice hoarse and heavy with sleep.

“And a good morning to you too, darling.”

She waves her hand in front of his face, almost hitting him in the nose this time. “Too loud, too happy.”

He chuckles lightly as Anya hides her face into his neck, her fingers brushing up his side and making him twitch. Any other moment, she would make good use of that new discovery, but she’s still too out of it to even care about his being ticklish. Instead, she groans a little and hugs him tighter when he grabs the blanket and pulls it above the both of them. 

It’s another five minutes before she stops trying to go back to sleep and flips over with a loud sigh to lie on her back next to him. Dmitry grins as he moves to lie on his side, head propped up against one hand while the other caress her stomach. She glares at him knowingly – not like he would do anything when they share a wall with her nephew – but the silent warning is lost on the bright smile on her lips. When he leans down to kiss her, morning breath be damn, she meets him halfway. 

It is only Olga knocking on their door that has them finally getting out of bed, Anya’s sister not even waiting around to wish them a good morning. She’s in the kitchen already when Dmitry goes downstairs – now decent and fully dressed, crazy post-make-out hair gone – and only pauses in her cooking to offer him a cup of black coffee. Anya grabs a croissant from a paper bag before she jumps on the kitchen counter and grins at her sister through a mouthful. 

Their morning bliss is short-lived, for soon Olga’s husband, Pavel, comes back from picking their daughter Alexia from her slumber party at a friend’s. Soon Nico is running around everywhere and, after a word from Anya about the kind of articles he writes at BuzzClick, forcing Dmitry to play video games with him in the living room. Dmitry feels bad about entertaining the kid when everyone else is getting lunch ready for, it seems, a dozen people, but Olga assures him that keeping Nico busy is all the help he can provide right now. So he shows the kid a few tricks at Mario Kart and pretends he knows absolutely nothing about Minecraft so Nico will excitedly explain it to him.

A hand runs through his hair at some point and, when he looks up, Anya’s eyes are so soft and loving that Dmitry’s heart leaps in his throat. Tongue-tied, he can only smile at her when she leans forward to kiss his cheek. She holds a bunch of cutlery in her free hand, the one still in his hair travelling down so her knuckles brush against his jaw. It’s simple, barely more than a few seconds before she goes back to setting the table, but it distracts Dmitry long enough for Nico to start complaining. Loudly.

When he focuses back on the video game in front of them, Dmitry’s mind isn’t entirely in it; it keeps wandering back to the softness of Anya’s lips against his skin, and the warmth of her presence by his side.

Soon, the house starts filling – Pavel’s sister first, followed by Alexei, then some friends and, finally, Maria and Tatiana back from Paris. Everything is loud and cheerful, everyone talking over each other as they settle around the table to share a drink. Anya’s hand finds his under the table, squeezing his fingers reassuringly. It does very little to ease Dmitry’s nerves, especially with the way Tatiana keeps whispering into Maria’s ear, who glances his way in the least stealthy way. 

“So what did you guys do yesterday?” Anya asks. Whether it’s because she has noticed what is going on or because she really is curious about her sisters’ whereabouts, Dmitry isn’t sure. 

“We went shopping for the gala, of course,” Maria answers easily. “Tanya’s dresses are all from another century.”

“Another decade maybe…” Tatiana comments. 

“You’ve got shit from the nineties in your wardrobe, that’s shameful.” Maria evens her older sister with a glare, before she shots Dmitry a bright grin. It is so unexpected that he can only startle at the sight. “Will you be joining us, Dmitry?”

If he’d but glanced at Anya, he would have noticed the look of warning she offers her sister. As it so happens, he can only blink at Maria, confused as to what the hell she is talking about. 

Tatiana is the one to save him, although ‘saving’ may be too generous a word. “Wednesday. Our grandmother’s charity gala. Surely Nastya told you about it.”

Surely she didn’t, not that Dmitry would say that out loud. He doesn’t really has to anyway, because it’s quite obvious from his reaction alone she never told him anything about any kind of gala. Or grandmother. Or meeting her grandmother during a gala. Oh boy. 

Anya squeezes his thigh enough to pinch the skin, Dmitry swallowing back a yelp behind a tight-lipped smile. But rather than listen to her silent warning, he turns toward Tatiana; his stubbornness will get the best of him one day. Tatiana’s eyes are full of  _ something, _ like she’s just waiting for him to prove himself unworthy. Fuck if he will let her win that round.

“Of course I’m coming,” he answers simply, and raises his arm to wrap it around Anya’s shoulders. “I know how important it is to Anya.”

“Only night of the year we can get money out of Leopold,” Olga comments as she takes Maria’s empty plate from her, then Tatiana’s.

Dmitry leaps at a chance when he sees it. “Here, let me help you,” he says, as he grabs his and Anya’s plates.

Olga tries to argue back, about how he’s a guest and shouldn’t help, but Olga is also a working mother of two; she doesn’t need much probing to accept help. He all but runs to the kitchen with his dirty dishes, and plants himself in front of the sink, turning the hot water on. It takes Olga two more back-and-forth between the kitchen and the dining room before she grabs a towel and a wet plate. They work in silence, side by side, for a few minutes. Just long enough for Dmitry to stare at his hands, reddened by the hot water, and not really see them anymore.

“Can I give you a word of advice?” Olga asks at some point, wiping a glass of wine until it squeaks a little.

“A Tatiana word of advice?” Dmitry sasses back, before he winces. Not exactly the best way to win over the only Romanov sister who doesn’t seem to entirely hate him.

Thankfully for him, Olga doesn’t seem to have a single mean bone in her body, for she laughs softly and shakes her head. “Tatiana is a little rough around the edges, but she’s all talk. Don’t let her see she got under your skin though, she’ll be smug for months.” When she grins, it’s gentle and amused. “But no. What I want to say is… I know it’s not easy, dating one of us. We’re a package deal, and not a lot of people can handle it. God knows Aloysha stopped bringing girls over a long time ago…”

Dmitry puts a handful of dirty forks in the water, before he adds some more dish soap on the sponge. “And Anya never brought anyone over.”

“You’re the first one,” Olga confirms with a nod. “And we’re… Let’s say we can be a bit protective. Nastya is our baby sister, and she’s a romantic. She doesn’t remember much about our parents, but she remembers how in love they were with each other. And she obviously wants that for herself too but… She pretends she’s a tough cookie, and in a lot of ways she is, but she’s a sensitive soul too. She just hides it well.”

Dmitry listens so intendly that it takes him long second of uselessly touching the bottom of the sink before he has to admit there is nothing else to clean. He empties the sink and grabs a towel instead, wiping the cutlery along with Olga.

“What I mean is, we don’t want Nastya’s heart to be broken. And no offense, Dmitry but…”

“I look like a douchebag,” he finishes for her, not even upset. He has that kind of a face, which is exactly why Gleb picked him for the job.

Olga’s lips twist, not quite settling on a smile. “Something like that. I’m sure you’re lovely but… Well…”

Pink blossoms on her cheeks as she looks down at her own hands. Olga doesn’t share Anya’s and Tatiana’s recklessness, more gentle, softer. It is hard work, being kind in such a harsh word, and he respects her all the more for it.

“I know I started on the wrong foot,” he admits, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip as he looks for his words. “But, and I say that with respect, it’s not your choice. If Anya wants me in her life, it’s not on you to decide if it’s the right move or not. I’ll stay with her for as long as she’ll have me, whether you guys agree or not. Would be nice if you did, sure, but…”

When Olga grins, it reminds Dmitry of his mother’s proud smiles when he got a good grade at a test, or got into journalism school. The kind of smile that made him invincible, as a child. When she speaks next, though, it’s with a finger pointing the cupboard. “Grab the candles on the top shelf, will you?”

 

…

 

By the time they’ve had birthday cake, with Nico opening his gifts, and then coffee, Dmitry and Anya make it back to Paris in the early evening. Anya jokes about a typical French lunch, even for Russians, as she hops off the bike and takes off the helmet before she gives it back to Dmitry. He stays seated on his bike and smiles up softly at her as she chatters away.

Dmitry takes his helmet off at some point, just so he can kiss her goodbye. As much as he would like to spend the evening with her, she has an early meeting tomorrow; he would only make her late by forcing her to stay in bed in the morning, just five more minutes.

Anya’s hand raises to caress his face, knuckles against his jaw, and his smile widens. “You don’t have to come to the gala if you don’t want to,” she tells him next. “It’s boring, you’re better off staying at home.”

“And not showing all those penguins what an arm candy I am?” he jokes, delighted at the snort of laughter out of her nose. “I’ll be fine, don’t worry.”

There is something in her eyes he can’t quite read, before she moves closer to him. Her fingers splayed out against his cheek, her breath fanning against his face. “Even meeting my grandmother?”

“Even meeting your grandmother,” he agrees. “All in, remember?”

She smiles against his lips, soft and warm and wonderful. Three powerful words get stuck on Dmitry’s teeth before he swallows them back – too soon, too much. Even for himself. He still needs time, to settle into his feelings, to put everything behind them and be allowed to just be. It would be unfair, to say it now.

“Wear something nice,” she tells him when she steps away.

“My best penguin suit,” he promises.

She laughs, and his heart sores.


	11. Monday and Tuesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This very much is a filler chapter before the gala, so. Yeah.

The good: Dmitry’s asshole colleague didn’t manage to find another victim over the weekend, and is off the article since he can’t do his half of the writing.

The bad: Gleb still insists Dmitry write the entire article on his own, because he still believes this may as well be their best, most click-baity article in a very long while and they need that sweet, sweet ad money.

The terrible: Dmitry has two other articles to write, the deadline is tomorrow, and Vlad just asked for his help with something else.

Now, he usually wouldn’t have any issue with telling Vlad no, especially when he himself is swamped with work. But Vlad arrived this morning with a business card that he handed Dmitry, with a date and hour scribbled on the back and a unique opportunity for an interview. For a real newspaper. In London. So Dmitry owns Vlad one, and so of course he will help his friend with all the editing and proofreading he has to do today. It’s only fair.

Dmitry only takes a break for lunch, and another one in the middle of the afternoon just so he can have ten minutes of outside air while he smokes a cigarette. It’s not a habit of his, not really, but the nicotine helps with the stress levels and it’s all he needs right now.

He drops Anya a quick text, so she won’t worry about his sudden silence after their weekend together, before he stubs his cigarette with his toe, puts his phone back in his pocket, and goes back inside. He plops in his chair with a loud sigh and puts his headphones on to blast music as he goes through all his tasks, one at a time.

Dmitry only stops when Vlad taps on his shoulder. His friend’s hair is crazy from all the running his fingers through it that has been going on today, but he also ordered pizzas for the both of them so Dmitry forgets to make fun of him. All he needs is greasy food right now. And about twelve hours of sleep.

“Don’t forget to log in your extra hours,” Vlad tells him through a mouthful.

Dmitry snorts a laugh. “I’m sure Gleb will love that.”

It’s only the two of them in the office, all the lights turned off beside the one above their heads, computers switched to night mode. Long shadows stretch along the floor and the walls, making the open space look like something out of some American thriller instead of the French cesspool of misogyny it is. Dmitry almost likes it better that way.

“Gleb can fuck off for all I care,” Vlad replies, so candidly Dmitry chokes around his mouthful of pizza.

“Vlad Popov After Dark,” he can’t help but comment with a chuckle.

That’s why they get along so well, despite the obvious age difference – Vlad is like this weird uncle you can’t help but love, no matter what he says or does. He is always here to whisper some mean comment about their colleagues into Dmitry’s ear during staff meetings, more often than not in Russian so nobody else will understand. It got them a long, painful lecture from Gleb; something about inclusivity that would have made sense in any other company, but just feels forced and ridiculous at BuzzClick.

They keep on trashing Gleb mercilessly as they finish their food, before Dmitry wipes his greasy fingers on his jeans and turns back toward his computer. Only two more articles to edit before he can schedule them, leave the SEO job to the marketing team, and call it a day. He’s stretching his arms high above his head, moving his head to this and that side until something in his back pops, when his phone pings with a new text from Anya.

Something short and sweet, but it doesn’t fail to bring a smile to his lips. Vlad notices, because of course he does.

“How was your weekend?” he coos with a shit-eating grin.

It takes all of Dmitry’s inner strength not to throw a paperclip at his friend’s face. “It was okay. Met all of her family, the cake was good. Basic stuff.”

Vlad remains silent, until the lack of a reply stretches awkwardly between them, the tension in the air making Dmitry uncomfortable. When Vlad finally replies, it’s a soft, “You’ll break her heart, Dmitry.”

His own heart sinks to the bottom of his stomach as he licks his lips nervously. It is one thing to know all of this could end a bigger mess than it already it, but it’s an entire thing altogether to have someone else being vocal about it. It makes it more real, somehow – like until now Dmitry could pretend everything would be fine, but now there is this certitude that it won’t.

“I’ll be careful,” he replies, almost choking on his own anxieties. “I know what I’m doing.”

“As long as you do…” Vlad replies, sounding as unconvinced as Dmitry feels.

It will be fine.

She will understand.

Maybe.

 

…

 

Contrary to what Maria let her believe on Sunday, she did _not_ find a dress for Nana’s gala. They got something for Tatiana, sure, but Maria came out of their Boulevard Haussmann frenzy empty-handed, which means she is now making it her mission to drag Anya all over the Champs-Elysées so they can find something to wear tomorrow night.

Apparently “I’ll just wear the dress I wore to Olga’s wedding” is not a good enough option in her sister’s book, so Anya now has to find something new too. Nothing but a waste of time and money, if you ask Anya. But her schedule is light today, and she doesn’t exactly feel like spending her afternoon with the mountains of paperwork she keeps pushing back, so.

A shopping spree between sisters it is, then.

They barely make it to the second shop before Maria has already bought a new top and a summer skirt, and Anya rolls her eyes as she follows her sister around. Typical Maria, to finish on a big project and immediately spend everything on clothes and makeup. Anya is glad that her sister’s web design business is doing well – well enough for her to still be able to afford Dior clothes, even without Nana’s credit card – but she finds all of this a little too excessive.

“Do you think Lucie would like those?” Maria asks, pointing to golden earrings.

“You’re not buying your girlfriend expensive gifts,” Anya deadpans. Still she looks up from her phone, stopping mid-text to Alexei, to look at the earrings. “They’re lovely though.”

“For her birthday?”

Anya smiles, just a little. “You could buy the matching ring.”

That gets a reaction out of Maria, who groans loudly as she steps away from the display window. As in love as she is with her girlfriend – and she is, so much so it’s almost sickening – Maria is even worse than Anya when it comes to long-time commitment. Or maybe not. Maybe Anya is worse. She doesn’t even know anymore.

It’s another hour before Maria finally finds something to wear – a green cocktail dress that shows off her boobs all the while making her waist looks thinner than it is, and matching black heels. Anya has been texting Alexei all through the process, because there is no way only one sibling should be suffering through the nightmare that is Maria with a gold credit card. Alexei’s replying texts are getting more and more sarcastic as times goes by, and Anya wouldn’t be surprised if he stopped replying all together. She wouldn’t blame him, either.

Of course, now that Maria has found what she was looking for, she’s focusing all of her attention on Anya and the perfect dress for tomorrow night. Which means Anya is shoved into a dressing room and forced to try on three dozen dresses a minute, only to be met with her sister’s disapproval every time. Jesus, but is Maria picky…

“You know it’s just a gala, right?” Anya asks from the other side of the curtain as she struggles to shrug on a dress that was definitely made for someone skinnier than her. “It’s not like we’re going to the Oscars or…”

“It does matter!” Maria opens the curtain just enough to glare at Anya. “How will we raise money, if you don’t bat your lashes at some old, white dudes?”

“First, gross,” Anya replies. She tries to pull the dress down her hips one more time before she gives up, and struggles to put it off instead. Her shoulders get stuck somewhere, which isn’t ideal. “And second, I’m not single anymore, so I can’t do that.”

She lets out a frustrated sigh before she pulls sharply on the fabric, glad at the lack of a ripping sound when she finally gets rid of the cursed dress. Maria is pointedly inspecting her nails when Anya looks back at her.

“So about you dating Dmitry…”

“Don’t.”

“I’m just saying. You didn’t want him to come.”

“I said _don’t,”_ Anya all but spits.

If Maria’s widening eyes are anything to go by, there was much more venom in her tone than she meant. Her sister’s features turn to something close to concern in a matter of seconds, though, and she quickly makes her way inside the changing room, drawing the curtain behind her. Anya is acutely aware that she is standing there in nothing but her underwear, even as Maria takes her hands in hers.

“You need to tell him,” is all she says at first, squeezing Anya’s hands a little. “It’s unfair to leave him in the dark. Someone will let it slip someday, and it will be more painful if it doesn’t come from you.”

Intellectual, Anya knows Maria is right; she knows that she can’t hide the bet from Dmitry indefinitely, even if said bet is basically moot at this point. But, still, just thinking about the conversation she’d need to have with him scares her half to dead, she who pretends she isn’t afraid of anything.

How do you go about telling your boyfriend the only reason you’re together is because you had a bet going on with your sister? How do you say that, and still convince him that you care about him, and your relationship? That it’s only been a week but you’re already so into him you can barely put it into words?

A weight presses against Anya’s sternum until she chokes on her own words, until Maria pulls her into her arms and holds her close. It doesn’t help, not really, but maybe it soothes her mind a little. Maybe it’s all she is allowed right now.


	12. Wednesday (1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... this is it?

When Anya told Dmitry a limo would pick him up, he thought she was joking.

But now, standing on the side of the road in front of a sleek, black car, he has to admit she was telling the truth – and he completely misjudged how rich her family actually is. The driver even opens the door for him, which is a whole new level of ridiculous, before he goes back behind the wheel and drives Dmitry to Anya’s apartment. The streets of Paris are busy, but not so much so that he gets stuck in traffic for too long, and soon enough he finds himself on the side of the road again, waiting.

He looks down to his own shoes, only to notice one lace has come undone, and kneels to fix it. A shadow blocks the street light above him and, when Dmitry looks up, his throat goes dry.

Anya has always been beautiful, but the word falls short to describe her right now. Her blue dress hugs her body before it falls gracefully to the ground, sparkling with what he guesses to be actual diamonds, a delicate cape of transparent fabric at her back. She wears long, white gloves that go all the way up to her elbows, and her hair is put into a complex chignon.

But it is the way she holds herself, proud, elegant, that takes Dmitry’s breath away. Far gone is the girl who played video games on his bed. For the first time since he met her, Dmitry is not facing Anya, but Anastasia Romanov, and all the nobility that comes with such a name.

“Wow,” he can’t help but breathe out, shamelessly gaping at her as he struggles to stand up again.

She giggles lightly, before she takes a few steps toward him. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she replies before, with one hand on his shoulder, she rises up to kiss his cheek. It heats up under her lips, and Dmitry has to admit it isn’t too uncomfortable.

The ride to the hotel where the gala is hosted is a short one, and soon he finds himself holding the limo’s door open for her, and giving her his arm. Dmitry has never done this type of thing before – networking isn’t something he particularly enjoys, and journalist conventions are never that prestigious anyway – and so he finds himself awkward and out-of-place as they enter the ballroom.

A bar is set to one side, with a live band on a small platform in front of a dancefloor, and many tables for guests to sit and chat. Every which way he looks, his eyes find crystal glasses, golden pieces of décor, and expensive fabrics. Woman laugh prettily behind glasses of champagne, men discuss lively about politics and economics. One child is running around and, when he stops to catch his breath, Dmitry recognises him as Olga’s son, Nico. His sister chases after him and so he sprints again, running between the guests and almost bumping into a waitress.

“Come,” Anya says as she pulls on his arm, dragging him away from the entrance door and his own thoughts, “Let me introduce you to people.”

Dmitry forgets names the moment they are given to him, too busy shaking hands and smiling politely and forcing himself to do small talk. He very much feels like nothing more than Anya’s arm candy tonight, too out of his depth to really manage more than a few, broken sentences here and there. It doesn’t help matter than some people raise quizzical eyebrows at his thick Russian accent, and Dmitry gets so flustered at some point that he even forgets a few articles in his sentences – like he just learnt French, instead of being able to speak it since he was a teenager.

Thankfully for him, the dread at the bottom of his stomach that has kept rising to his throat settles down a little when a familiar face comes to greet them. Pierre, Anya’s friend from the bar, launches himself in a conversation with them, and they are soon joined by Alexei. That, Dmitry can do – chatting about this book and that research paper Alexei read today, and this upcoming exposition at the Louvre. It’s just posh enough not to raise any eyebrows if someone were to eavesdrop on them, but still at Dmitry’s level that he feels comfortable enough actively participating in the conversation. Anya hangs at his arm, smiling up at him every time he glances her way, and so Dmitry kisses her cheek before he answers Pierre’s question about the last book he’s read.

They somewhat find themselves discussing the differences between French and Russian architecture – Alexei surprisingly knowledgeable on the subject – when someone calls Anya’s full name. She stiffens at his side, before she turns around slowly. When she pulls on his arm, Dmitry follows without question but with a parting nod toward the two other men.

“Ready?” Anya whispers to him. Dmitry doesn’t have time to ask her what for, before she cheerily exclaims, “Nana, I’ve missed you so much!”

Dmitry is the one to stiffen this time, as she lets go of him to throw her arms around the neck of a tall, proud woman. Marie Romanov is still a beautiful woman, despite the years wrinkling her skin. She stands like a queen even as she takes her granddaughter in her arms and kisses her cheek, leaning against her cane like it’s a golden sceptre. When she turns her gaze toward Dmitry, staring him down without an ounce of shame, he feels as if she is looking at his very soul – and is finding him wanting.

“So that is your young man,” she comments simply, to which Anya replies with a roll of the eyes.

She comes back by his side and pulls him closer, her smile big yet a little forced. “Nana, this is Dmitry. Dmitry, this is my grandmother.”

“Nice to meet you,” he manages, with difficulty, to croak. She holds her hand out to him and, for a frightening moment, he wonders if she expects him to kiss it. He settles for shaking it softly instead. “Anya has nothing but praises about you.”

It’s not quite a smile settling on Marie Romanov’s lips, but close enough he supposes. “Olga has told me about you too, young man. Polite. Handsome. Russian.”

She might not have listed those descriptors by order of importance, and it leaves Dmitry painfully awkward. From what he’s gathered, the family’s matriarch still is very much about traditions – the fact that her granddaughter is dating a Russian man might as well be a highlight, no matter the way he looks or sounds. Which is worrying, perhaps, in a what-century-is-it-again kind of way.

Anya must notice too, because she lets out a small laugh as she shakes her head, before she laces her arms around her grandmother’s. “Come on, Nana. Be nice.”

The older woman doesn’t quite soften, but there definitely is a gentler edge to her eyes when they settle on Anya once more. It is obvious that the woman loves her grandchildren dearly, and has a soft spot for the younger granddaughter – not that Dmitry can blame her for it, when he’s so fond of Anya himself.

“Fine,” she replies finally, even if her voice still is a little distant and cold. “But how about inviting him for lunch next weekend? And please, go and have a word with Leopold, he still hasn’t written a check yet.”

And with that she is gone, mingling with an old couple standing in a corner. Dmitry blinks, confused, even as Anya moves closer to him once more so she can wrap her arms around his waist. He didn’t expect to get a lunch invitation out of this, quickly followed by a cold shoulder but. Oh well. That’s rich people for you, he supposes.

“That went well,” Anya comments.

A nervous chuckle escapes his lips and, before he can think twice about it, he runs a hand through his hair. It must look like a mess now, no longer perfectly combed back, but he doesn’t have it in himself to care when his heart is beating dangerously in his throat.

“I need a drink,” he tells her his voice wavering a little.

He barely remembers getting out of her embrace and walking toward the open bar, let alone asking for a glass of vodka, until the liquid is burning down his throat and clearing his senses a bit. He shakes his head, hoping to get rid of the last traces of awkwardness weighting down on him, but it has little effect. Maybe he should order a second drink.

“I used to hate those parties too,” someone comments.

When he turns his head, a smile immediately stretches on his lips. Draped in her most expensive dress, red painting her lips, Lily grins at him above the rim of her own glass. She’s the last person he expected to see here tonight, but her presence makes sense – she’s always loved to mingled with other rich people, much to Vlad’s annoyance. His friend married rich when he married Lily, but it doesn’t mean he has to like all the social gatherings that come with it.

“Lily,” Dmitry grins, a little more at ease all of the sudden. “I was going to call you but…”

She waves him off, “Yes, yes, you boys and your busy schedules, I know.”

 

…

 

With Dmitry off to drink himself into a stupor (hopefully not), Anya sets herself on finding Leopold, pulling a few thousands out of his pocket, and calling it a day. Better do it now so she can enjoy the party rather than let it drag on for too long – nobody quite knows how to force the unpleasant man into giving up some of his money like she does, after all. Last time Maria tried, she almost got into a fist fight with him over her _poor lifestyle choices._ Anya can’t blame her sister for snapping, but still. Better not make waves in front of so many people.

Instead of Leopold though, it is another familiar, and much more agreeable, man she finds. “Vlad?” she exclaims happily as she makes her way toward the old family friend. “What are you doing here?”

“Anastasia, darling!” He kisses both her cheeks with a smile. “You know Lily. Always first in line to show off her designer dress.”

Anya laughs softly, before she grabs a glass of champagne from a waitress walking around. As she does, she looks around her to try and find Lily, only to unsurprisingly spot her at the bar. What is surprising, though, is the person she’s deep in conversation with.

Vlad must misread her confused frown. “That is Dmitry Sudayev, we work together. I have no idea how the bastard managed to get in without an invitation though,” he laughs. “Lily is helping him find a new job. You know how she is with sad puppies and lost causes…”

Nothing about what Vlad just said eases Anya’s confusion. Actually, it leads to even more questions – is Dmitry quitting his job? Why didn’t he tell her? About being unhappy at work and about looking for something else? She is so deep in thoughts about it, that she forgets to tell Vlad she indeed knows the man.

“A new job?” she asks. It might sound like she’s just entertaining Vlad. She doesn’t know.

Vlad, not looking at her, takes a sip of his drink and chuckles. “Yes. Poor boy doesn’t get along with our boss, and he got screwed over big time last week. It’s one thing to be stuck writing video games reviews, it’s another thing to be forced into doing some sexist social experiment.”

Anya’s heart leaps in her throat, beating so fast she’s afraid she will throw up, as alarm bells start ringing loudly in her head. She feels lightheaded, almost afraid to ask. She has to ask. She already knows, deep down – all her instincts on high alert, everything in her jumping to conclusions. She needs to know. To confirm.

“Social experiment?” she asks, her voice so small she isn’t sure Vlad hears her at first.

But he does, and shakes his head. “He had to date a girl and make her go through hell to try and prove a point, I guess. Poor her. And poor him, because he’s in so deep and…” Vlad finally glances at her, his words dying on his tongue when he notices how pale she is, knuckles turning white around her glass of champagne. “Oh.”

 _Oh,_ indeed.


	13. Wednesday (2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh Dima... what goes around come around...

“They know your English isn’t so good, but they don’t mind at all,” Lily is in the middle of explaining him, before she takes another sip of champagne. “It’s a French publication anyway, so you will be fine.”

“My English is nonexistent,” he can’t help but state. As thrilling as this job opportunity in London is, especially offered on such a silver platter, anxiety still gnaws at his stomach. All his life, he has only known Russia and France, and the idea of moving to a new country, even to escape the nightmare that is BuzzClick, makes him nervous. But if Lily believes in him, enough to recommend him for the job, it must be before he’s qualified for it, right?

“No better way to learn the language then.”

He’s about to tell her it’s not that easy, when someone drapes themselves all over the older woman. It takes a long second for Dmitry to recognise the light brown hair as belonging to Maria and, by that time, she kisses Lily soundly on the cheek.

“Well hello, my darling,” Lily cooes. Actually  _ cooes, _ instead of the usual sarcastic tinge to her voice. That’s new. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” Maria answers as she steps away, only to wrap both her arms around Lily’s. She spares Dmitry a quick, polite smile, before she adds, “Lucie and I are planning on sneaking out in five minutes but don’t tell anyone.”

Lily’s grin is nothing short of mischievous. “Oh, to be young and in love…” She stops, before she adds, “Which reminds me! How is that little bet of yours going?”

Maria visibly tenses, her body going stiff for half a second, before she throws Dmitry a worried glance. He frowns at her, but she’s already looking back at Lily, bottom lip caught between her teeth. When she replies, it’s in such a flat tone that dread immediately rises up Dmitry’s throat. “Nastya won, actually.”

“Really?” Lily replies, a little too loud. “Our Nastya? Still dating someone a week later?”

Another glance from Maria, but Dmitry barely registers it. Something is ringing in his ears, loud, painful. Something…

Lily perks up as she looks above his shoulder. “Nastya, darling! We we just talking about…”

“You sick son of a bitch!”

The slap echoes even above the sound of music and chatter. Maria gasps loudly, and Lily is rendered speechless, but Dmitry doesn’t notice them. All he sees is the fire, and pain, and fury in Anya’s blue eyes, all he feels is the pain in his cheeks and his own heart in his throat. He chokes on whichever words are trying to escape his lips, speechless, brainless. 

All around them, people are staring. Whispering. Guessing.

He doesn’t care; he can only stare at her, can only witness the tears pooling in her eyes, her body so tense she starts trembling. He did that too her. He’s doing that to her. This is all his fault. He knew from the first day, he knew this would happen, and this is all his fault and still he did nothing to prevent it.

“Nastya…” he starts in a broken whisper.

She raises her hand again; he flinches.

That is when Olga jumps in, seemingly from nowhere. She grabs Anya’s elbow, and whispers “Not here,” into her ear, with a pointed look at the curious crowd around them. Even Maria is left speechless, or she would surely be helping her little sister to destroy Dmitry.

“I don’t give a fuck about…”

“Nana does. I do. You’re making a scene. Do it outside.” She pushes Anya toward the entrance doors, with an insistent nod. Anya protest a little, so Olga repeats a little more firmly, “Outside. Now.”

Anya finally obeys, gathering the skirt of her dress to make a quick exit. Dmitry makes for following her when a sharp finger against his chest stops him. His eyes are wide and panicky when he looks up into Olga’s, stern and serious. “Whatever it is, you fix it,” she tells him.

“Gosh, yeah. Fuck.”

“Indeed.” He’s already running outside when he vaguely hears Olga says, “No, Maria, you stay here.”

Perhaps it is indeed better to suffer the wrath of only one Romanov woman for now. He will barely survive it as it is, he doesn’t need her sister to gang up and finish him in a matter of minutes.

He finds Anya outside, struggling to walk down the stairs leading from the hotel to the street. Her heels are slowing her down, the only reason why Dmitry manages to catch up with her before she has time to hail a cab and disappear into the night.

“Anya,” he calls after her, and grabs her elbow.

She snatches it away from him and turns around. The intensity of her glare makes him flinch, but not as much as the tears freely rolling down her cheeks now. How can he comfort her, when he is the one bringing her pain? When he shouldn’t even be allowed in her presence, after what he’s done?

“You used me,” she seethes. “You used me and you lied about it, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.”

“Oh, because you entered this relationship without any motives, did you?” he can’t help but shot back. She opens her mouth in a wordless expression of surprise, and he takes it as his opportunity to climb down the last two steps that still separate them, and to move into her personal space. “Tell me, Anastasia, how much did you earn, parading me around tonight?”

Her lips move of their own, silently, before she finds hers words again. “Nothing.” It startles him as much as the slap did. Her voice is small and broken, her eyes red, her cheeks soaked with tears. “It was just a silly game. It didn’t mean anything.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?” 

His voice is low, dangerous. He has no right acting the way he does, when his actions were so much worse than hers, when he hurt her so much more. But he is angry, mostly at himself, and he has never been known to be level-headed. He needs to snap, if only to let go of all the emotions boiling under his skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were using me?” she argues back. “Because that was the big thing you couldn’t explain, right? So what, Dmitry? You were going to explain everything once your stupid article was published and hope for the best? That was your plan?”

She’s working herself up, red in the face and her voice grows louder. Dmitry’s hands rise to cup her face and calm her down, but she only slaps them away and glares at him some more. He wonders if this feeling in his chest, this tightening grip around his heart that almost leaves him breathless and panting and light-headed… Is that what it feels like, when you break your own heart?

“Anya…” he tries again, uselessly. He deserves her anger, her scorn. “Anya, please…”

“You’re such an asshole!” The sentence starts angry but ends with her voice cracking into a sob, before she bites down on her bottom lip and looks away. Tears are falling down her face again, and she shakes her head with a small, pathetic laugh. “I can’t believe I fell for it.”

He moves closer to her once more, in a pitiful attempt at grabbing her hand again, but of course she pushes him away once more. The motion of her arm, jerking and stiff, barely conceals the fact that her entire body is trembling, from her limbs to the bottom lip still caught between her teeth. Dmitry has never felt more like the kind of guy who reads his articles before going back to Reddit.

“Anya, listen…”

“Listen what?” she snaps against, and moves back into his space so she can slap his chest and push him away. “That I was a pawn in that scheme of yours? That you made me feel I matter to you just for some bullshit article? I was stupid and naive when I met you, but I never was that dishonest!”

He looks away as he takes a deep breath, finger carding through his hair, but the fire under his skin doesn’t fizzle out. Quite the contrary, and he offers her such a murderous glare in return that she can only take a step back in shock. “Don’t talk to me about honesty when you only were interested in me for a fucking bet with your sister! How old are you, six?”

“You think I’d introduce you to my entire family if it was only a bet?”

“I don’t know, Anya. Seems like we both need to reevaluate a lot of things, don’t we?”

It doesn’t leave her speechless as much as it creates a much needed pause in their fight. Or, well, a pause, at least. Because the more silence stretches between them, seconds ticking by without one of them speaking up, the more Dmitry accepts the only conclusion to this story. The one he has been dreading for days now, looming over his head like his own, fucked-up sword of Damocles.

Anya’s hand rises up to grab her elbow, all of her fury and will to fight gone. She looks small and vulnerable, shielding herself away from him, still shivering. She looks so delicate, breakable, lost. All because of him. All his fault.

“You used me,” she says again, in a whisper so low he wouldn’t have heard her were they not so close to each other. “Your big talks about how much you hate your job, but you’re not any better. You’re just like them. You used me, and I hate you for it. I wish we’d never met.”

He opens his mouth, but his heart is in his throat, blocking the words. It’s only when he tries to breathe, and chokes on a sob, that he notices the fat, warm tears on his cheeks, the shiver of his lips, how taut the muscles in his fingers are, to the point of hurting. Still, when she takes a few step backward and away from him, he contracts his entire body to force himself not to move. It’s better that way, he reminds himself. She’s better off without him anyway. He shouldn’t have even tried in the first place; girls like her, they’re not supposed to date losers like him. She deserves better. She deserves the world.

Maybe it would make it easier, if she’d told him it was over. Oh, it’s obvious enough, but hearing it out loud would have made it permanent, immutable. A finality, the foregone conclusion to a week of heaven and hell. But she doesn’t say anything, and turns around, before she disappears around a corner.

And him, the damn fool, stays rooted on the spot. Even when Maria, who must have been spying on them from inside, calls her name and runs after her, Alexei at her heels. Even when Olga is soon to follow, slowed down by her high heels. Even when Tatiana stops in front of him. He stays rooted on the spot, staring at the emptiness where Anya was, only a minute before. In front of him. At his side. But no more.

Tatiana’s eyes are as cold as the winters of Siberia when they land on him. Dmitry’s mind is too dumb for him to flinch away, to cower and protect himself. “Don’t ever come near her again,” she tells him, the threaning edge to her voice just enough for Dmitry not to want to fight back.

Why, anyway? It’s not as if he could fix anything at this point, anyway. Better go home to lick his wounds, and hope Anya will one day find her happiness away from him. She deserves it, even if he doesn’t. She deserves to be happy; he deserves what he got.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replies.

Better go home to lick his wounds.

So he does.


	14. Thursday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've noticed yesterday that this fic is fourth most kudos'd for Dimya, and it's competing with works that were posted 6 years ago. Wow. Thank you all so much for the amazing support!
> 
> Anyway, this is a sad. You've been warned.

By the time Nana makes it back home, it is way past midnight and Anya finds herself sitting cross-legged on the sofa, with a blanket around her shoulders, a bowl of ice cream in her hands, and a horde of worried siblings around her. Her tears dried before she even made it home, leaving place to cold, silent fury. Anya only needs one look at her Nana, though, for the watergates to open again. 

“Oh my poor darling,” Nana whispers as she makes her way toward Anya, hands already rising before she’s even close enough to cup her face. 

Anya forces herself to swallow back the sob until she can only choke on them. A hiccup is ripped from her mouth even when she tries to keep it in, and then the tears are falling free down her cheeks once more. She feels, somewhat numbly, Maria’s hand rubbing up and down her back, Alexei’s chin on her shoulder, but it matters very little in the face of her Nana’s concerned eyes. 

Maria jumps to the side to let their grandmother sit next to Anya on the sofa. She is a grown woman, with a job and bills and taxes, but still she finds herself sinking in Nana’s embrace, still she starts sobbing loudly. 

“There, my darling. There,” Nana whispers quietly. 

She is a rock of comfort and confidence, the tone of her voice enough for Anya to know everything will be alright. Her heart may be broken beyond repair, but everything will be alright in the end, because Nana is here. Nana will not let anything else happen to her. 

“My mother always told me crying was a sign of weakness,” Nana goes on, and Anya hiccups a whine in reply. “But someone hurt you, so you’re allowed to cry.”

Nana rocks her slowly, Anya’s face hidden in the warmth of her neck. Just like when she was a child, waking up from a nightmare and calling for her father. But Papa wasn’t there anymore, and Nana was the one to comfort her. Papa isn’t here today to tell her he will have a word with this young man. Mama isn’t here today to tell her she is overreacting, crying over a lower class man. Anya chokes on another sob at the thought, until she’s choking on air, sputtering and panting. 

“She’s having a panic attack,” someone, Tatiana, says. 

Ah. 

She is, indeed. 

Struggling to breathe so badly she feels like dying, light-headed and burning. Or perhaps it is just her heart shattering a little bit more, tiny pieces caught in her lungs, her throat, her nose. She chokes and sobs and coughs, until one of her sisters puts a plastic bag over her mouth and nose and tells her to breathe deeply. 

She does as she’s told, large intakes through the nose, slow exhales through the mouth, until the black dots in her vision disappear. Until she’s not dying anymore. Just numb. 

The tears have stopped, she breathes normally again. 

Her heart, though. 

Her heart doesn’t mend. 

 

…

 

Anya doesn’t remember going to her bedroom, or putting her pyjamas on, or falling asleep. She doesn’t remember much after going home, beside the emptiness in her heart and the itching of her eyes, her dry mouth. She wakes up in her bed, though, with an arm around her waist. Alexei is snoring into her ear, snuggling her like he used to when they were children, hiding under the covers from the monsters under his bed. 

There are no monsters under the bed now. Only cruel men with cruel hearts. 

She closes her eyes again, for a few seconds, before she stretches her arm to grab her phone on the nightstand. Messages are lining up, ready to be read. The latest one is from Maria, saying she’s cleared Anya’s calendar for the day so she doesn’t have to worry about meetings. A few others are from Pierre. A bunch of notifications in the OTMA conversation. And five texts from Vlad. Anya doesn’t open those ones. 

Nothing from  _ him. _ She doesn’t know to be disappointed or relieved. 

By her side, Alexei startles himself awake with a loud snore, his hold on her tightening a little bit. It takes him at least two minutes before he mumbles a good morning, voice still heavy with sleep. 

“Are you on Nastya Watch?”

A pause. “Yeah.”

“Okay.”

They do that every time. When Nico fell off his bike and broke his leg, and Olga was a mess. When Maria got her heart broken by a girl for the first time. When Alexei’s meds stopped working and he had an episode. They may bicker a lot, and fight, and yell, and be upset, but the Romanov siblings will always have each other. Will always survive thanks to each other. It’s what they do, what they’ve always done ever since Papa and Mama were gone, ever since they understood life out there is not easy for orphans. 

“But…” Anya starts, “the university…”

She feels Alexei shaking his head against the pillow. “I took a day off. Undergrads can survive without a lesson, and I told my thesis director I’m working from home.”

Her baby brother, so smart and hardworking and amazing. Staying in bed to comfort her, like when they were little, piling up on Nana’s bed all together to watch cartoons and tell each other their favourite memories from Papa and Mama, from Russia. 

Anya swallows around the limp in her throat, tears prickling at the corners of her eyes. “Thank you,” she says, not without difficulty. 

She doesn’t know what she would do, without her siblings. Not much, perhaps. They are her rock, her everything. 

“It’s only seven,” Alexei replies, and turns around in bed until his back is against hers. “Sleep.”

Sleep evades her, but still Anya stays in bed too. Eyes closed tightly, she forces herself to think about everything except last night, which obviously means she can only think about it. The silent tears roll down her face and soak the pillow under her head, but she is too emotionally exhausted to wipe them away. Crying is good, even when she gets a headache from it. It makes everything a little bit more real, reminds her that this was not just a nightmare. Than men are cruel and heartless, and there was a reason she was not dating. A reason she can go back to being single, and be fine with it. 

She doesn’t go back to sleep as well as drifts into a state of unconsciousness but, when she wakes up again, Alexei no longer is in bed and a low pounding has settled between her eyebrows. Anya frowns at the emptiness of her bedroom, fingers searching of her phone. The screen reads half past nine, and too many messages she doesn’t have the strength to read.

Breakfast is a simple affair of coffee and Nutella on slices of bread -- any other day she would cringe at the calories intake, but today is not any other day -- before she slips under the shower. Her tears run down her cheeks with the hot water, but she lets them. It’s good, letting it all out at once, so that once she steps out of the shower and wraps herself into a warm towel, she’s ready to move on.

To put this all behind her, and not let it affect her anymore.

Which is easier said than done, of course, but at least she doesn’t cry again that day as she follows Alexei in whichever activities he’s planned to keep her mind off things. They end up in the same hipsterish brasserie where they usually have their Sunday brunch, except it’s a week day so the place is way less crowded and busy. Anya orders her usual pile of pancakes, with chocolate and bananas, and extra bacon on the side. The sugar rush, and Alexei’s conversation, help with easing her mind; it’s all she could hope for, at this point.

She has no idea why, exactly, Alexei chooses the aquarium next to the Trocadéro for them to spend the day, but she’s past questioning every weird choice her brother makes at this point. And, she has to admit, there is something peaceful and soothing about spending an entire hour with her hand in a big tank, petting the huge, colourful koi carps. One of them tries to gulp her finger at some point, startling her until she falls on her ass in front of the tank and laughs so hard she forgets to breathe. Alexei looks at her like she’s crazy, or dying, or both, but. It feels good, to laugh. To enjoy the little things. To not feel so sad anymore.

They buy muffins and orange juices at the aquarium’s café, and have their snacks in front of the giant shark tanks. Alexei points at one particularly big shark and announces that his name is Boris, and soon they’re giving all the sharks ridiculously Russian names and making up background stories for all of them, giggling like children. Anya can’t remember the last time she spent a full day with one of her siblings -- they all have lives, and busy schedules, and everything -- but she’s missed it. She’s missed him, and they still both live together with Nana.

“Tell me about your thesis,” she asks him as she bumps her shoulder against his when they leave the aquarium. It’s too warm and sunny a day to take the underground back home, and the buses are always full, so they walk instead. Alexei tells her about his research so far -- he’s writing about the Russian Revolution and the last days of the Tsar’s family, something Anya is vaguely familiar with but that Alexei is just in love with. He knows all the names, and dates, and tiny details that come with hours upon hours of reading. Anya has no idea how he does it. She would be bored out of her mind after two months, let alone five years.

And then she thinks about Olga and Tatiana, with their eleven years each of studies. And she wonders if Maria and she really are from the same family, because there’s no way they can be related to such smart people. But Maria truly is a genius when it comes to drawing, and graphic design, and colour palettes, so maybe it’s just Anya. Small, not quite bright Anya. Go figure.

Nana has dinner with them that evening, which only serves as a friendly reminder that things are not quite right. Nana always is so busy all the time that sometimes it’s easy to forget she’s living in the apartment too -- Anya can go a full week without seeing her sometimes, because she’s too busy working, and eating out with clients, and going to the opera with Lily, and so many other things. Alexei and she always joke that Nana has a more thrilling social life than anyone else in the family, and they’re not so far off the truth.

So for Nana to take time out and have spaghetti bolognaise, of all things, with the two of them? Yeah, it’s not really helping. Anya soldiers on all through the dinner, smiling on cue and moving the pasta around her plate because she isn’t that hungry, and then she runs to her bedroom when given the chance. It’s Alexei’s turn to do the dishes anyway, so that’s fine.

She opens Netflix and scrolls through until she finds some comedy to watch, and wonders when exactly she reverted back to her teen self, mopping around with a Heath Ledger movie and wondering why everything sucks, just a little.

She falls asleep early, but she doesn’t fall asleep crying.

A small victory.


	15. BuzzClick

**Nice guys finish last**

_by Dmitry Sudayev_

 

Let’s set the scene: rue Oberkampf, a Tuesday evening. A crowded bar. A beer in my hand. And a girl. The girl. Small, red hair, the bluest eyes you’ll ever see in your life. The kind of confidence about her that makes you weak in the knees and makes you write sentence fragments about her. She’s a Russian migrant, just like me, from Saint Petersburg, just like me. The conversation lasts five minutes, electricity in the air, before I take her home. It’s just that easy.

 

The context: an article to write. Find the girl, make her fall in love with you, prove that you can be the biggest asshole in the world and it won’t matter. Just because you have a pretty face, she will stay with you.

 

The facts: she doesn’t.

 

Here’s the thing about women: they only care about your face if you have the brains that come with it. My mother thinks George Clooney is the most attractive man in the world; it’s not because he’s beautiful per se, it’s because he _has charm._ He’s charismatic. He has this way about him. Smooth voice. Easy smiles. Kind spirit. I’ll be frank, for the longest time I didn’t have a fucking clue what my mother meant by that. Handsome even if you’re not? And what the fuck is charisma anyway? How do I even get that? What happens if I don’t?

 

And here’s the thing. Women love pretty boys. We are all shallow beings; we all love pretty things. But you could be George Clooney yourself and women still wouldn’t have to put up with your bullshit just because. Women wouldn’t care about George Clooney if he were a jerk. And damn, did I learn it the hard way.

 

My mother raised me right, real polite. No dirty jokes (well, not _a lot_ of them…), golden boy. I thought I was one of the nice ones. I respect women, I take no for an answer, I don’t go out of my way to be an asshole. I try my best to be one of the (very few) good apples out there and, most of the time, it’s not even that hard. I mean, if you have to put some effort into respecting people, the problem most likely comes from you.

 

But still, here’s how the week went: I played her. I pretended to be someone I wasn’t, both when I was an asshole and when I was overly nice to compensate for it. I used her, and humiliated her, and broke her heart. I promised I was one thing, and then went around and destroyed everything. And, at the end of the day, I became the very same man I’d promised myself I never would be. That man is all my colleagues at BuzzClick. That man is the gross dude who can’t take no for an answer, who believes in the “redistribution of sex” (whatever the fuck that means), that man is the one who doesn’t understand why he’s single, because he’s A Nice Guy TM.

 

That man, I was him for a week.

 

And perhaps longer than this. Perhaps I still am. Because there was this girl – this beautiful, smart, amazing, perfect girl – and I broke her heart. I destroyed everything about our relationship, I destroyed her heart, I destroyed her. Because I was an asshole, who put a good reference letter above his integrity. Because I looked into the eyes of a woman who cared about me, and still went on with the bullshit. Because I fell in love with her, and it didn’t change anything.

 

My mother raised me right but, somewhere along the way, society came and fucked it all up. I think she would be ashamed of her son today; she will be, when she reads this article, and she will be right. “But this isn’t me, I’m a good guy,” I could argue. But am I? “I would never have done it if it weren’t for the article.” But wouldn’t I have?

 

I’m not. I would have. I’m just another guy on the internet who works for a publication he hates, to pay the bills. I get on my high horse every time I tell people I work at BuzzClick because yeah but, see, I’m not _like_ them. Whoever “them” is. But in the end, I’m just like them. I am them. This is me, putting money above integrity, above values I thought important to me, above everything else. Above her.

 

So to all the guys who think nice guys finish last. Who think women owe them sex. Who think women are with jerks because they’re handsome. To all the guys reading this article and frothing at the mouth. Fuck you. I tried to prove you all wrong, and it cost me the love of my life. Fuck you all.

 

The kicker? I love her, and I don’t deserve her. And that’s on me.

 

The conclusion: there is none. Life goes on, and I have to learn to live with the choices I’ve made. But I’m the lucky one in this situation, because she learns to live knowing than men, indeed, are all jerks. I can’t even blame her. She’s right.


	16. Friday (1)

Maria is the one on Nastya Watch when Anya wakes up the following day. She’s made herself at home already, sitting cross-legged at the dinner table with her laptop and graphic tablet in front of her. The strong aroma of coffee fills the room, and the last notes of a Panic! At The Disco song fade away, Paramore’s guitar riffs rising in the silence of the apartment.

“The emo playlist, really?” Anya asks as she makes her way to the kitchen so she can pour herself a cup of coffee. She adds two sugar and a drop of milk, head bobbing to the music. It reminds her of being a teenager, singing along to rock songs and dancing on her bed with Maria and Alexei, playing at who-would-be-the-more-dramatic. (Her, always her.)

“It’s still solid, stop complaining,” Maria replies, not looking away from her screen. She’s drawing a mermaid, and it’s probably part of the children’s book she’s been illustrating for weeks now.

“Am not,” Anya says as she comes back to the living room, and sit on a chair opposite Maria. She puts her feet on the chair, arms wrapped around her legs and chin on her knees. “You could have bought croissants, though.”

Maria takes one grape from the fruit bowl in the middle of the table and throws it at her. Anya catches her with her mouth, the grape exploding on her tongue before she swallows it around a proud grin, to which her sister only replies by rolling her eyes.

“The bakery is just next door, feel free to go whenever.”

Anya pokes her tongue out at her sister, before she looks down at her phone. Emails have been piling up since yesterday and it will take her hours to go through all of them – not that she has anything else to do. She can’t remember the last time she took that many days off work, but it would be lying to say she doesn’t deserve them. She’s been working so hard the past few years; she deserves a break, even if it comes with an almost mental breakdown and an identity crisis. 

She’s in the middle of sending a requested to DisneyLand – lots of kids want to be in the happiest place on earth as their Wish, after all – when Maria’s phone blasts Alexei’s personalised ringtone. 

“Yeah, baby bro? …Okay, wait. I’m putting you on speaker.” She moves the phone away from her face and presses here and then on her screen, before she adds, “Okay, you can speak now.”

“Nastya, what’s Dmitry’s surname?”

She frowns, both at the question and the hurried tone. “Sudayev. Why?”

“You need to check Twitter,” is all Alexei says instead of answering. “Now.”

The sisters frown at each other above the top of the laptop screen, before Maria pushes her graphic tablet and Anya stands up to walk around the table. By the time Anya stands behind her sister, both hands on the back of the chair, Maria has opened Twitter already. It’s her profession account, the one where she posts about her work and current projects, but it’s not the most important part right now. 

Because Anya’s eyes are drawn to the Worldwide Trends list on the left of the page, and they widen when she reads through it. 

BuzzClick is trending, and with it Dmitry Sudayev. Worldwide. 

Maria’s mouth hovers over the name, before she pauses and looks up at her little sister. Anya is aware that she’s waiting for something, for some hint of approval that she can click and discover what is going on. But she just can’t stop staring at the screen, at the name. Just a bunch of letters aligned in one specific order, and yet her heart is in her throat, beating so fast that she’s afraid her breakfast will go out the wrong way. Maria is silent, and so is Alexei, and Anya is staring and staring and staring.

She isn’t sure if she offers Maria a nod, or a jerk of the head, or just that her entire body is trembling. But at some point she moves, and Maria clicks on the link, opens the floodgates, releases the kraken. And Anya, with her heart in her throat and cotton in her ears, and her damn fucking mind playing tricks on her, Anya leans closer to the screen so she can read.

The first tweet comes from the Huffington Post, of all places. ‘How one Frenchmen called out incel-friendly online magazine,’ reads the title. Next tweet is from a feminist organisation. The one after from a politician. Then another feminist, some angry dude, a smaller newspaper, a YouTuber, random person number one, random person number two. It goes on and on, and on, until Maria scrolls back up and clicks on the HuffPost article.

“Sudayev, who had been working for ClickBuzz for the past five years, posted the article early this morning,” Maria reads out loud for the both of them. “It stayed online for three hours before it was deleted – but not before people could screencap it and share it on social media. The article soon went viral and…”

Maria stops then, goes back to Twitter, finds the screencaps. It’s four of them in a row, sentences after sentences, paragraphs after paragraphs. The style is messy, all over the place – she pictures Dmitry sitting in front of his computer and typing angrily, or going at it on his phone, before hitting the ‘Publish’ button in a spur-of-the-moment fit of rage.

That raw, unguarded flood of emotions, she felt it too. 

It’s hard, to come to terms with it, with the fact that Dmitry may be going through the same heartbreak she is. A small, angry part of her wants him to suffer, to feel so sorry for his crimes that he will come crawling back to her and beg for forgiveness. But, at the end of the day, that is not who Anya is. That is not what Anya wants. She just wants… she just thinks that Dmitry messed up, and is as broken as she feels, and probably was drunk when he wrote and posted this.

She thinks that he would never have said some of those things, sober, to her face.

Maria’s phone beeps twice loudly, startling Anya out of her reflexion. It’s another call, from Olga, and Maria is fast to merge the two conversations together so they can share a big Romanov conversation.

“Did you see it?” are Tatiana’s first words.

“Yeah, looking at it right now,” Maria replies.

“How’s Malenkaya holding up?”

“You’re on speaker,” Maria says, at the same time that Anya replies, “I’m fine.” But her voice is flat and small, and her eyes are still glued to the screen, and she isn’t even convincing herself. She doesn’t feel fine. Actually, she doesn’t know how she feels at all about all of this.

The Dmitry she knows – or, well, thought she knew – never would have done that in a manipulative way. Despite what some of those tweets are claiming, he didn’t do it to throw a pity party for himself, or for Anya to feel sorry for him. If Dmitry is half the man she thought he was, he meant every word he wrote. And perhaps that is the most terrifying part.

“So what are you going to do?” Olga asks, her voice so soft and gentle that Anya’s eyes start prickling.

“Well, she can’t exactly…”

“I think that’s quite romantic and…”

“She should just call him to see if…”

“...obviously manipulating her and…”

“...if he really means it, it could…”

“...benefit of the doubt and…”

“...doesn’t deserve her anyway, she’s too…”

“...but what about second chances and….”

“HOW ABOUT YOU ALL SHUT UP!” Hands in her hair, pulling a little, she is still staring at the screen and ignoring Maria’s wide eyes, enjoying the silence that settles over the phone. Not even Olga makes a comment about her language, which says a lot. “My love life isn’t some kind of democracy where you all have a say!”

A pause. Then, Alexei, “Well, more like an oligarchy because…”

“Oh shut your damn mouth, okay!”

Alexei may shut his mouth, but Maria’s jaw is on the floor. Olga weakly protests about not talking to her brother that way, not that Anya pays her any mind. She’s just focusing on breathing properly again, deep in, low out, so as to calm down the anger building inside her. She loves her siblings, she really does, but sometimes they forget about boundaries. Which would be fine any other day, but her mind is too much of a mess already for her to take into account everyone’s opinion on the matter.

“I’ll call you all back later,” Maria hastily says, before she hangs up despite her siblings’ protests.

The silence that follows is deafening. 

It’s only when Anya goes to the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water, only to struggle with opening the bottle, that she looks down at her hands. They are trembling so hard she can’t make them stop, even when she clasps them together. She closes her eyes and leans her forehead against the cold metal of the fridge’s door, willing her heart to stop beating so fast, her entire body to calm down.

Maria’s hand, warm and soothing, settles on her back and runs small circles against the fabric of her shirt. She doesn’t say anything at first, just lets her comforting presence do the job, and Anya has to admit it is effective. After the noise and mess of her siblings, some moments of peace with the other half of the Little Pair might be exactly what she needs right now.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Maria asks softly.

Anya scoffs. “Is there anything to talk about? This doesn’t change anything.”

She isn’t so sure who she is trying to convince here but, as always, Maria isn’t fooled. She doesn’t say anything for a while, her lips pressed tightly, as if carefully pondering on her next words. Maria has never been the wiser of the lot, after all, especially not when it comes to relationship advices. She got her heart burnt too many times before meeting the love of her life, and yet she kept throwing herself back in the game every time. Anya has no idea how she did it.

“But he said you were the love of his life,” Maria finally says, her voice soft and careful. “That has to change  _ some _ things.”

“You think I should forgive him?”

“No.” Simple. Final. “Because what he did is unforgivable, I stand with Tanya on this. But… But Nastya, you owe it to yourself to find some closure, don’t you think?”

It’s dangerous -- she is afraid of what might happen if she confronts Dmitry again, if she looks into his eyes only to find something she doesn’t want to see in them. Or does want to see. What then? Fall back into his arms, only to get burnt once more? Walk away from him anyway? She doesn’t know what she wants, what she needs, what she expects. Why does everything about all of this have to be so complicated, her mind at war with her heart?

“I don’t know…” she starts, before she pauses. Tongue darting out to lick her lips. Hand rubbing one of her eyes. 

But perhaps not knowing is exactly why she needs to do that. Perhaps it will shed some light on the situation and allow her to make sense of everything that has happened since Wednesday night. And, like Maria said, it might help her get some closure, might make it easier for her to move on after this. So she sighs, and looks back at her sister. 

“Yeah, okay.”

Maria smiles, soft and protective, before she takes out her phone and opens the maps app. “Let’s go to BuzzClick, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey fun talk: only two chapters left!
> 
> Fun talk #2: I just watched The Kissing Booth on Netflix, which is exactly the kind of trash teen romcom I love, and the urge to write a Dimya AU about it is strong. How do we feel about this, gang?


	17. Friday (2)

It is only once they are standing in front of the building holding ClickBuzz’s headquarters that Anya realises their plan wasn’t all that thought-out. First, because for all they know, Dmitry isn’t even here. He could have posted the article from somewhere else. He could – definitely was – have been fired on the spot. He’s not going to be here. This is beyond ridiculous. 

And second. Well, she has no idea what she will tell him.

Her eyes are drawn to his bike, parked down the road, and her heart misses a beat. Maria is thanking their Uber driver for the ride, but all Anya can do is stare at that damn bike, and let the memories of the weekend flow back at the front of her mind. She doesn’t want to think about it; she shouldn’t be thinking about it. And yet. 

“Ready?” Maria asks, a hand on her forearm. 

Anya shakes her head, and forces a smile on her lips that turns into a grimace more than anything else. She swallows around the knot in her throat, and nods sharply. “What’s our cover story to be here?”

“Don’t need one. The key is to act like you belong here. Nobody will ask questions.”

Except no woman belongs at ClickBuzz but for the young girl behind the reception desk who welcomes them with a confused smile. She looks exactly like the kind of woman ClickBuzz’s boss would hire just to be eye candy while answering the phone, Anya’s stomach churning at the thought. As if this entire business wasn’t already disgusting enough as it is. 

“Excuse me?” the receptionist asks, confusion in her voice, as she leans above her desk to watch the sisters walk by. “Do you have an appointment?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Maria replies in a clipped tone, before she grabs Anya’s arm to force her to walk faster. 

The receptionist is still protesting, though weakly, when they close the door to the office behind them and face a sea of men at their computer. Only one raises his hand from his screen, and then an eyebrow, at their presence, while everyone else is too busy working and listening to music and minding their own business to notice anything out of the ordinary. 

Anya doesn’t find Dmitry among them, but she does spot Vlad at one of the computers in the back, and so makes her way toward him. He raises his hand from his computer for a quick glance, then longer for a double take. Anya smiles sweetly at him as he obviously blanches at the sight of her -- the bitter part of her wants to be upset at him for what happened, even if she ultimately knows none of this was his fault.

“What are you doing here?” he asks without any preamble.

“Where’s Dmitry?” she shoots back immediately.

His eyes widen, just a bit, before they look away from her and to the empty desk to his left. It looks freshly cleaned, like it was used until only recently, and Anya’s heart falls in her stomach.  _ No. _ “He left,” Vlad confirms. “Took everything last night and never came back. He posted the article this morning, and our boss fired him over the phone.”

Chances of this happening were high, of course, but Anya didn’t entirely prepared herself to the possibility. She was already rehearsing her speech to him on the way here, picking the right word, choosing the right tone. But she was not prepared for Dmitry simply not being here. She has no idea where to go from there.

“Do you know where he’s now?” Maria asks, when Anya’s silence lingers for a little too long.

Vlad’s eyes jump from one sister to the other, repeatedly, a look of confusion settling on his features. “He’s on his way to London,” he states, like it’s obvious. “His interview is this afternoon.”

Anya is the one to blanch this time, hiding her hands in the pockets of her jacket so they will stop trembling. Maria spares her a worried glance, before she asks Vlad, “When’s the train?”

He checks the time on his phone, before he answers, “In two hours.”

“We can still make it,” Maria says as she turns back to Anya, one hand on her forearm. 

Anya wants to ask her why it matters at this point, why she thought it mattered before. The universe is telling her she should stay away from Dmitry, and perhaps the universe is right. Why persisting anyway, when it will not change anything? The worst happened already, and she doesn’t need any more heartbreak, any more reasons to hate him. She should just go back home and…

“We will make it,” Maria insists, her hand squeezing Anya until she forgets to complain. If Maria believes it, maybe Anya should too.

She’s about to agree with her sister, when someone behind her says, “Can I help you?”

She turns around, only to find herself head to chest with a man. His close proximity startles her until she takes a step back and meets his eyes. His features are sharp, sovietic, and his voice carries the slightest hint of a Russian accent. Anya hates him on the spot.

“Who are you?” Maria asks, her smile too sweet, her voice too soft. Great minds, and all that.

The man’s smile tries for being attractive, Anya thinks, but it just looks feral to her. No surprise, coming from a BuzzClick guy -- and if her guts are right, not just some random BuzzClick guy. He confirms it a moment later, “Gleb Vaganov, editor-in-chief.”

“Ooooooh,” Maria says, almost too low. “Dmitry’s boss.”

The fist flies before Anya, or even Gleb, has time to get ready for it, and then Maria is yelling at her to run, grabbing her hand in the process. The guy is yelling insults at them through his bloody nose, not that Anya thinks twice about it as she runs away from BuzzClick’s offices. They don’t stop until they’re outside, around the corner, Maria laughing like a madwoman.

“You punched him!” Anya screams, halfway between a laugh and hysterics.

Maria shrugs, shameless. “He deserved it,” she says simply. She sobbers up quickly, though, before she adds, “Let’s go to Gare du Nord before it’s too late.”

 

…

 

Gare du Nord is busy, as always, Anya dodging between people so she can reach the stairs leading to the Eurostar. It’s easier once she no longer has to walk through the throng of people catching a train or running toward the subway’s entrance, but still she struggles with finding Dmitry in the mass of people waiting for customs before they can board the train. Even on her tiptoes, she’s too small to see above people’s shoulders, let alone heads.

“Can you see him?” she asks.

Maria is just behind her, doing exactly the same -- she has a few inches on Anya, but not much. And not much success either, apparently. “Are we sure Vlad was right?”

“Is Vlad ever right about anything?” Anya asks back, too tired to hide her sarcasm at this point. This is all so ridiculous and Tanya was right. She should have stayed home, eat ice cream, and watch reruns of The Nanny or something. Everything but those sad, desperate attempts at… something.

Maria must be coming to the same conclusion too, because she sighs loudly as she falls back on her feet and looks behind her. Anya is about to call it a day, when her sister’s hand swats at her arm, first sloppily then with more conviction, until she turns around.

He’s here, standing a few feet away from her, with wide eyes and his mouth open in an expression of surprise that must match hers. A leather bag is thrown over his shoulder, and he holds a garment carrier in his hand.

“Oh,” Anya comments, unable to formulate more than this one vowel.

A pregnant pause, neither of them able to move or even to say anything else. Dmitry’s mouth snaps shut, his fingers tightening around the strap of his bag until the knuckles turn white. Anya shifts on the spot, but can’t find a comfortable way to stand straight, too awkward, too out of place.

“Well…” Maria starts, a little hesitant. “I’ll leave you some space. To, like, talk and stuff.”

Talk and stuff. Sounds like a good idea right about now, even if Anya has no idea how to do it. She can’t remember anything she’s prepared in her head, her mind now drawing a painful blank, her mouth dry of saliva and words.

Dmitry is the one who finally breaks the weird tension between them as he moves closer, too close. He’s looking at her like he can’t believe she’s real, but also like she’s a wild animal that he could spook at any moment, and she doesn’t know how to deal with it. Doesn’t want to ponder too much on the heartbreak she reads in his eyes. At least they’re not too hopeful, so there’s that. She wouldn’t be able to deal with… any of this.

“You read it,” he comments, his voice flat. It’s not a question, just a fact.

“Everyone in France must have read it by now,” she replies, small, careful. This is ridiculous, everything about this situation is so damn fucking ridiculous, and she can’t cope with it. “Why did you do it?”

“Had to. I couldn’t… I didn’t…” He stops, and sighs loudly, upset with himself for his inability to finish a sentence. Anya understands the feeling. “It would have eaten me away, if I hadn’t come clean with everything.”

So point to Anya, probably, for knowing he wrote the article for the right reasons. Victory is so bittersweet, though, that she doesn’t even linger on the fact that she apparently knows him well enough to have guessed right. Because this man standing in front of her, Anya doesn’t really feel like she knows him at all.

The article was real, but then what? It doesn’t make his lies disappear, it doesn’t stop her from wondering how much of him was made up and how much was the real Dmitry -- if anything he’s shown her during the past week even hold any truth at all. He manipulated her into falling for him, and then used it against her, played her for his stupid article even when he was falling for her too. Perhaps it is the worst part. That his feelings didn’t matter as much as his stupid article.

Still. Still, one thing sticks to her mind, and she needs to know. “Did you mean it?”

He doesn’t ask her to elaborate, not that she would have been able to. The words have been on her mind since she read them this morning, but she wouldn’t be able to say them out loud even if she tried. They’re too painful, burning up her throat until they die on her tongue.

“Every word,” he answers softly. His hand rises, as if ready to brush against her arm, before he changes his mind. “Nastya, why are you here?”

“I don’t know,” she admits. “I thought it would… I don’t know what I thought.”

She bites down on her bottom lip, as if to keep herself from saying something she will regret. From asking him questions whose answers she will not be able to handle. From telling him she loves him and hates at the same time, and isn’t it the worst part? That, despite everything, she still loves him?

“I know this won’t change anything, but I’m really sorry,” he tells her next. “And I hope that you will be able to forgive me one day.”

“One day,” she echoes, confused.

“One day,” he confirms with a nod. “But in the meanwhile, I’ll be working on being a better person. We’ll see how it goes.”

“You’re a good person, Dmitry,” she finds herself saying, even though she doesn’t know who she is trying to convince at this point. They both know he fucked up, both know that even with the best intentions, he still have a way to go before the BuzzClick mentality doesn’t cling to him anymore.

And so Dmitry smiles, a little amused and a little sad, before he leans forward to kiss her forehead. Anya should step back, for she’s too numb at this point to remember she still hates him, still is upset at him. It’s as if all the fight has disappeared, and only remains her mental exhaustion. “You’re a better person than I could ever be,” he replies. “And that will have to be enough for now.”

A female voice announces the last call for the train to London over the speakers, and so Dmitry smiles at her a last time before jogging to join the line. She doesn’t quite watch him go, for Maria leads her out of the train station after that. 

It’s only once she’s outside, the sun kissing her face, that Anya lets the tears roll down her cheeks. Not sad nor angry this time, just tears to mourn the could-have-been.


	18. Four years later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, guys!
> 
> I want to thank you all for the support, and the reviews, and the kudos, and everything! It means a lot to me that you enjoyed reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Most wishes Anya grands are more or less the same - go to DisneyLand, swim with dolphins, meet their favourite celebrity, those kinds of thing. She never judges a child by their wish, of course, but it would be lying to say she doesn’t get a little bit more excited about the planning when a wish is out of the ordinary. Just last year, a girl wants to be a Formule 1 race driver, just for one day, and the planning involved was crazy but rewarding. Or that one time a little boy asked to design a dress for Paris’ Fashion Week. Or twins who wanted to go to London and experience everything Harry Potter dressed like George and Fred Weasley. Those keep Anya on her toes.

Her current wish is five months in the making. It’s not so much that the planning was a headache, but the dates never aligned right and they had to work on the schedule over and over again until everyone involved was satisfied. But here she is now, on a train out of Paris with a teenage boy and his mother, her folder opened on the day’s schedule as she goes through it point by point.

The kid always dreamed of becoming a journalist, and wanted to be an editor-in-chief for one day. It was scary, how easy it was for Anya to call the one person she knew would say yes straight away despite four years of silence. And he had said yes, indeed, which is why they are on their way to Lyon for the day.

“You will start with a staff meeting. It happens every Tuesday to decide on the editorial line and which articles to publish in which order,” she explains, pointing at a line on the printing schedule with her pen. “They told me you’ll have the opportunity to give ideas, if you want. Then you’ll spend the morning with one of the writers, so he can show you how he works. I think they expect you to write a full article of your own, if you’re up to it.”

The kid is grinning from ear to ear, barely able to sit still for more than ten seconds. His excitement gets to Anya, who can’t stop smiling too as she goes through the rest of the schedule - a business lunch to talk about a future deal with potential clients, followed by an interview with a up-and-coming actor set to win the Palme d’Or at Cannes this year, to finish the day with the community manager of the publication.

Nice, packed day, just like Anya loves them.

“It’s awesome!” the boy exclaims once she’s done. His eyes are shiny and wide. “Thank you so much!”

“My pleasure,” she smiles kindly. “We still have two hours before we arrive to Lyon, so you should try taking a nap in the meanwhile.”

He doesn’t, of course, still too hyper to calm down. But he eventually start playing some video game, headphones on, which is better than jumping all around the train carriage, at least. Not to mention that it allows Anya to send a few, last minute texts and emails to make sure everything is ready for the big day.

The answer to each of her messages comes in a matter of minutes, and Anya finds herself smiling despite herself.

 

…

 

They were obviously expected, because they are welcomed at the door with smiles and cheerful greetings the moment they arrive. The kid is obviously overwhelmed but takes it in stride, cheeks red and eyes shining with excitement. 

“Hello, I’m Dmitry Sudayev, editor-in-chief,” comes with a grin and a shake of the hand. “Welcome to GentleDudes.”

He hasn’t changed one bit, down to the haircut. Anya already knew, of course, through no short amount of LinkedIn and Instagram stalking during the past few weeks, but still. Still her heart does a loopy thing when his eyes meet her, his entire demeanour switching from welcoming and confident to something a little more sky.

“Hi, Nastya,” he says softly. Too softly.

“Hi, Dima. Thank you for doing this.”

“Sure.” There is a moment of silence, his eyes holding hers in a steady gaze, before he shakes himself and looks back to the teenager next to her. “Okay, then! Let me show you around!”

It soon becomes obvious that Dmitry has everything under control and even cleared his schedule to accommodate his guest, and so Anya finds herself stepping back to leave them space, switching between keeping the mother company and checking her emails every once in a while. She sits at the back of the room during the staff meeting, and marvels at the diversity among Dmitry’s staff - he seems to be the only white guy in the room and, even though all the journalists are men, women seem to be running everything behind the scene, from finance to communication to photography. How he managed to gather such a team for such a popular online publication in so little time, she has no idea. But it clearly works.

The morning passes by so quickly, and then the teen is shipped from place to place, mother in tow. Anya takes is as her opportunity to have a break and, after a short talk with the secretary, she’s shown to a corner of the open-space office where she can sit down and work on her iPad for an hour or two.

She’s in the middle of drafting an email when Dmitry sits by her side. Anya, always the stubborn one, ignores him for a few minutes, before he sighs loudly and she can no longer look everywhere but at his face.

“What,” she asks flatly, even as she leans with her head in the palm of her hand. He’s too close all of a sudden, after so many years of silence, after a few weeks of back-and-forth texts and emails. He’s too close, his eyes too bright, his smile too happy. It throws her off balance, just a little bit.

“Stop pretending to be busy so you won’t talk to me.”

She shakes her head and looks away, if only to stop her lips to curve into an amused smile. “Who’s to say I want to talk to you.”

“Why wouldn’t you? I’m delightful!”

He has just enough boast in his voice that Anya can’t swallow back the snort of laughter. It makes him grin, of course, a little too proud, a little too smug. “A bit too confident, for a guy who gets crushed at Mario Kart every time.”

The look of pure offence on his features is nothing if beautiful. “It was just one time!”

She looks down at her nails, and purses her lips. “And yet…”

He doesn’t reply anything for a very long time. Anya’s mistake is to look up at him, because what she sees takes her breath away. His eyes are so soft, not leaving her face even as she looks away and feels the heat rising to her cheeks. His gaze is too intense, the feelings she can read in them too raw. It reminds her of things she had locked down and away, never to revisit again, reminds her of playful nights in his apartment and flirting texts and this one perfect weekend in the countryside. Only one week, and yet so many warm memories are attached to it.

And his article, the one she read so many times she knew it by heart after a while. The words she memorized despite herself, the ones she wished didn’t hurt as much as they did. The pain and fury of those few days after the gala turned to sad melancholy after a while, after she finally mended the broken pieces of her heart. And now that he’s back in front of her, all soft and floppy hair, dimple in his cheek and amazing shoulders, now that she can reach and touch him all over again… maybe it is time for her to admit she’s missed him, in some weird, incomprehensible way.

“You’ve done good, Dima,” she manages to say after a while. “All of this… Your father would be proud.”

There is something sad and melancholic about his smile too, before he slowly licks his lip and grins. Her eyes are drawn to his mouth, something he doesn’t miss, damn him. “That’s what my mother always says,” he can’t help but chuckle lightly. “But, truth be told? I did it for myself, not for him. How’s that for selfish?”

She squints her eyes at him for a moment, before she swats his shoulder. It’s barely a slap, but he still grabs his shoulder and pretends to be hurt, the moron. “Who are you trying to convince here, you idiot?”

When he laughs, it’s a little less heavy, a little more carefree. “Okay, okay, I did it for the legacy and all that, sure. But also, like, for myself. To prove to myself that I could actually do something that matters. Something that makes me look like a good person.”

“You’re a good person, Dima,” she says, her own words startling her, and him. The words that echo what she told him at a train station, all those years ago. Except she didn’t believe them back then, and never did he. Except they ring true, this time, and they both know it.

Dmitry hesitates, just for a moment. She can see it in his eyes, the battle deep inside his mind, the doubts and how he changes his mind at least ten times in the blink of an eye. She wants to press both her hands against his mouth, wants him to swallow back the words before they roll down his tongue, before his words match the light in his eyes and change everything between them.

But, perhaps selfishly, she lets him speak.

“I did it for you, too.”

And there it is. There they are. It’s not like she had hoped for it, because that would be ridiculous, but. He sent her the link to the website, when it officially opened, nothing but a text with the website’s address and a smiling emoji. But after years of silence, it had been loud in how quiet this message was. The knowledge that he had kept her number. The fact that he wanted her to see what he was up to. The obvious pride in a project he really believed in.

And perhaps she will never be able to forget but this, this was a step toward forgiveness. 

“Dima…” she says now, but has no idea where to go from there. 

It feels too big, too important. Too live-changing. She remembers his articles, and his declaration, and hours speaking to each other in the comfort of his bedroom. She remembers his lips on hers, and his hands mapping her body, and his warmth against her naked body. His breath against her neck. His laugh, dimples in his cheeks. The way he wrapped his arms around her and she felt whole. She felt home.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine,” he says, and takes her hand. His looks so big on top of hers, the skin slightly tanned, the muscles firm and solid. “I just wanted you to know. No pressure.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

She has no idea what she’s apologizing for.

 

…

 

The train back to Paris leaves at half past six, and they make it here early enough to buy overpriced coffees at the station’s café. The teen can’t stop talking excitedly about everything that happened, retelling it all to his mother even though she was here too, and she smiles softly at him, she smiles at him in a way that makes Anya miss her own mother. The pain has dulled with the years, but will never go away, not entirely.

She grabs her phone to text her siblings, like she always does when she misses her parents a little too much. She is in the middle of sending a message to Olga, asking if she wants to hang out with the kids this weekend, when her phone buzzes between her hands and startles her. The text that follows, only seconds later, isn’t as startling.

She closes one conversation, and opens another one.

 

Anya nimbles on her bottom lip until it feels numb between her lips, until the voice over the speakers announces the right platform for their train. She looks up, at the teenager’s whole life she changed, at the mother who loves her son so much. She looks at them, and makes up her mind in a second.

“Hey, so,” she starts, and opens her bag, rummages through it for a moment. “Here’s your tickets. I’ll call someone so they wait for you at the station and drive you home, okay?”

The mother’s smile is too knowing, too amused, but Anya ignores her as she pays for their drinks, two bills she stucks under her mug, before she stands up. Her legs are cotton, or jelly, or something else entirely ridiculous like that, as she makes her way out of the train station.

It is only once outside, with the cars passing by fast and loud, with the sound of the city, that she makes the call. He answers after the second tone, his voice surprised and hopeful, oh so hopeful, when he says her name.

“How about you buy me dinner first, and then video games?”

A pause, and a laugh. “Don’t move, I’ll pick you up.”

This time, she thinks, they’ll do it right. They better.


End file.
